AMERICAN  WRITERS 
OP  TO-DAY 


HENRY  C.VEDDER 


AMERICAN 


WRITERS    OF    TO-DAY 


BY 
HENRY   C.   VEDDER 


A  perfect  Judge  will  read  each  -work  of  Wit 
With  the  same  spirit  that  its   aiithor  writ: 
Survey  the  Whole,  nor  seek  slight  faults  to  find 
Where  nature  moves,  and  rapture  warms  the  mind. 

POPE  :  Essay  on  Criticism. 


SILVER,    BURDETT   AND    COMPANY 
NEW  YORK  . .  .  BOSTON  .  . .  CHICAGO 


Copyright,  1894, 
BY  SILVER,  BURDETT  AND  COMPANY. 


All  rights  reserved. 


vw 


TO   HER 

WHOSE  SYMPATHETIC  COMPANIONSHIP, 

WHOSE  LOVE   OF  THE  GOOD, 

THE   BEAUTIFUL, 

THE  TRUE, 

HAVE    BEEN    AN    INSPIRATION    IN    ALL    MY    WORK 
THROUGH    MANY   HAPPY   YEARS, 

I    DEDICATE 
THIS   BOOK. 


M5S49G9 


PREFACE. 


JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS  once  defined  luncheon 
as  "a  reflection  on  breakfast  and  an  insult  to 
dinner."  In  a  similar  spirit,  one  might  define  a 
preface  as  a  reflection  on  the  author's  skill  and  an 
insult  to  his  readers'  intelligence;  for,  if  a  book 
requires  elaborate  exegesis,  if  its  purpose  demands 
careful  explanation,  something  must  needs  be  wrong 
with  either  book  or  reader.  Nobody  need  feel  under 
the  slightest  obligation,  therefore,  to  read  this  pref 
ace;  but  should  it  occur  to  some  one  to  glance  a 
second  time  at  this  page,  let  him  be  assured  that 
these  studies  of  contemporary  American  literature 
make  no  pretence  of  being  complete,  comprehensive, 
exhaustive.  There  was  a  vague  purpose  in  the 
author's  mind,  when  he  began  writing,  to  supplement 
these  chapters  with  some  attempt  at  a  general  sur 
vey  of  the  American  literature  of  our  own  time,  after 
the  manner  of  Mrs.  Oliphant's  "Victorian  Age  of 
English  Literature."  This  would  have  given  them 
more  formal  completeness,  even  if  it  did  not  other 
wise  add  to  their  value.  Should  the  reception  of  his 


vj  PREFACE. 


book  encourage  him  to  persevere,  he  may  yet  fulfil 
that  intention. 

In  the  meantime,  he  ventures  to  hope  that  what 
he  has  done  may  fill  a  vacant  place.  There  is  very 
little  that  makes  any  pretence  of  being  serious  criti 
cism  of  the  writers  of  our  own  day.  Let  any  one 
ransack  even  a  large  library,  and  he  will  in  most 
cases  go  away  empty-handed  of  books  that  will  aid 
him  in  the  study  and  comprehension  of  current  lit 
erature.  Some  of  our  leading  periodicals  contain 
reviews  of  lately  published  books  that  are  worthy 
to  rank  with  the  best  critical  writing;  but  these 
reviews  only  partially  supply  the  reader's  wants. 
What  he  desires  is  an  intelligent  and  critical  account 
of  an  author's  whole  performance,  not  a  review  of 
any  particular  work;  something  that  will  help  him 
to  comprehend  the  nature  and  value  of  a  writer's 
contribution  to  our  literature,  to  estimate  his  signifi 
cance,  to  perceive  his  characteristics  and  idiosyn- 
cracies, —  in  a  word,  to  read  him  understandingly. 
If  these  studies  have  any  value,  it  is  their  fitness  in 
some  sort  to  satisfy  this  desire.  The  writer  does 
not  affect  what  Scott  felicitously  called  "the  big 
bow-wow  style,"  nor  has  he  any  ambition  to  be  a 
Jeffrey  with  a  "  This  will  never  do  "  for  anything  that 
he  does  not  himself  like;  still  less  does  he  aspire 
to  make  and  unmake  authors'  reputations.  The 
motto  placed  on  the  titlepage  has  been  throughout 
borne  in  mind.  He  has  tried  to  read  our  American 


PREFACE. 


Vll 


authors  sympathetically,  intelligently,  diligently,  and 
to  report  as  well  as  he  is  able  the  results  of  this 
reading.  Making  no  claims  to  infallibility,  he  has 
striven  to  give  his  report  honestly,  and 

"nothing  extenuate 
Nor  set  down  aught  in  malice." 

Partly  for  the  convenience  of  those  who  lack 
other  books  of  reference,  partly  because  the  facts 
recited  throw  a  side-light  on  the  literary  work  of 
the  writers  studied,  some  biographical  details  are 
interwoven  with  the  critical  remarks.  If  to  any  the 
book  seem  to  lose  dignity  because  of  this,  possibly 
in  the  judgment  of  other  readers  this  feature  will  add 
to  its  interest  and  value. 

New  Yorkt  October  2,  1894. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

I.  EDMUND  CLARENCE  STEDMAN 3 

II.  FRANCIS  PARKMAN 27 

III.  WILLIAM  DEAN  HOWELLS 43 

IV.  HENRY  JAMES 69 

V.  CHARLES  DUDLEY  WARNER 87 

VI.  THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH 104 

VII.  MARK  TWAIN 124 

VIII.  FRANCIS  MARION  CRAWFORD 141 

IX.  FRANCES  HODGSON  BURNETT 158 

X.  CHARLES  EGBERT  CRADDOCK 171 

XI.  ELIZABETH  STUART  PHELPS 187 

XII.  ADELINE  D.  T.  WHITNEY 201 

XIII.  BRET  HARTE 212 

XIV.  EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE 230 

XV.  EDWARD  EGGLESTON 248 

XVI.  GEORGE  WASHINGTON  CABLE 261 

XVII.  RICHARD  HENRY  STODDARD 275 

XVIII.  FRANCIS  RICHARD  STOCKTON 288 

XIX.  JOAQUIN  MILLER 301 


INDEX 3r7 


AMERICAN    WRITERS    OF    TO-DAY. 


EDMUND   CLARENCE   STEDMAN. 

A  MERICA  has  as  yet  produced  no  poet  who  was 
+  *•  poet  and  nothing  else.  No  counterpart  of  a 
Wordsworth  or  a  Tennyson,  conscious  of  his  high 
calling,  has  devoted  his  life  to  the  faithful  and  single- 
hearted  worship  of  the  Muses.  This  may  be,  in  part, 
due  to  the  hard  conditions  of  life  in  a  new  world. 
Every  man  has  had  to  face  the  problem  of  making  a 
living,  and  we  are  even  now  only  beginning  to  see  grow 
up  among  us  a  leisure  class.  A  people  that  have  had 
to  subdue  the  wilderness,  to  tunnel  the  mountains,  to 
bridge  rivers,  to  build  railways  and  telegraphs  and 
factories,  to  dig  wealth  out  of  the  bowels  of  the  earth, 
may  be  pardoned  if  they  have  somewhat  neglected 
the  worship  of  the  beautiful  in  eager  quest  of  the 
useful.  Our  country  has  thus  far  been  too  deeply 
intent  on  utilitarian  aims,  its  ideals  have  been  too 
gross  and  unspiritual,  for  the  up-bringing  of  great 
poets. 

For,  even  had  the  poet  been  born,  he  had  been 
given  scant  encouragement  to  devote  his  life  to  his 
art.  A  Tennyson,  a  Scott,  a  Byron,  receives  princely 


AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 


sums  for  his  verse,  but  what  American  poet  has 
been  able  to  live  by  his  art  alone?  Of  all  our 
Scant  rewards  singers,  Longfellow  came  nearest  to  this, 

of  American  . 

poesy  yet  he  was  far  past  middle  life  before  he 

was  able  to  surrender  his  bread-winning  profession 
and  give  all  his  time  to  literature.  Only  one  born 
to  affluence,  like  a  Browning,  can  venture  to  devote 
his  life  to  work  for  which  his  fellows  show  so  slight 
esteem  and  offer  a  reward  so  niggard. 

As  a  compensation,  in  some  sort,  for  the  lack  of 
great  poets,  America  has  been  dowered  with  an  un 
usual  proportion  of  clever  men  of  letters,  —  poets,  but 
not  poets  solely ;  men  whose  Yankee  shrewdness  and 
adaptability  have  enabled  them  to  do  many  kinds  of 
work,  and  to  touch  nothing  that  they  have  not  adorned. 
Poe,  Bryant,  Longfellow,  Emerson,  Lowell,  Holmes, 
among  the  dead,  Stedman,  Aldrich,  Howell's,  among 
the  living,  are  names  that  at  once  suggest  themselves 
to  us.  It  may  well  be  that  our  literature  as  a  whole 
is  more  brilliant  and  many-sided  than  it  would  have 
been  had  these  and  others  been  able  to  give  themselves 
wholly  to  poetry.  There  are  those  who  hold  that,  if 
one  has  the  true  afflatus  in  any  degree,  and  is  con 
scious  of  a  message  to  deliver  to  the  world,  he  will 
find  a  way  and  a  time  to  speak  it  forth.  Much  may 
plausibly  be  said  for  this  view  of  the  case ;  one  instinct 
ively  disbelieves  in  the  "  mute,  inglorious  Miltons," 
for  had  they  been  Miltons  they  had  been  neither  mute 
nor  inglorious.  And  yet,  there  may  easily  be  such  a 
thing  as  the  partial  delivery  of  a  message.  The  sky- 


EDMUND   CLARENCE  STEDMAM 


lark  will  surely  sing,  but  we  may  believe  that  he  will 
soar  higher  and  pipe  a  clearer,  more  melodious  note, 
when  the  heavens  are  propitious. 


I. 


EDMUND  CLARENCE  STEDMAN  was  born  at  Hart 
ford,  Conn.,  October  8,  1833.  He  is  a  scion  of  the 
purest  New  England  stock.  Like  many  other  men  of 
genius,  he  seems  to  have  inherited  his  mental  and 
moral  traits  largely  from  his  mother,  a  sister  of  William 
E.  Dodge,  and  daughter  of  the  Rev.  Aaron  Cleveland, 
great-grandfather  of  Grover  Cleveland.  Quite  early 
in  life  he  showed  special  aptitude  for  lit-  An  early  ap- 

1  titude  for  htera- 

erature,  and  gave  promise  of  at  least  con-  ^re- 
siderable  talent.  While  a  student  at  Yale  College 
he  won  honors  in  Greek  and  English,  obtaining  first 
prize  with  a  poem  on  "Westminster  Abbey  "  that  was 
published  in  the  "  Yale  Literary  Miscellany"  in  1851. 
For  some  boyish  escapade  he  was  suspended  from 
college  in  his  junior  year,  and  never  returned  to  take 
his  degree.  What  his  offence  was  does  not  appear, 
but  that  it  was  no  serious  affair  is  evidenced  by  the 
mildness  of  the  penalty,  and  still. more  by  the  subse 
quent  action  of  his  college,  which  in  1871  restored 
him  to  his  class  rank  and  conferred  on  him  the  degree 
of  Master  of  Arts. 

His  college  course  being  terminated  in  this  summary 
way,  young  Stedman  adopted  journalism  as  his  calling, 
and,  after  a  brief  and  not  too  profitable  experience 


6  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

with  country  newspapers  in  Connecticut,  he  found  a 
place  on  the  staff  of  the  "  New  York  Tribune"  in  1854. 
Here  he  remained  until  1860,  when  he  joined  the  staff 
of  the  "  New  York  World,"  and  for  some  time  served 
as  war  correspondent.  As  a  journalist,  one  gathers 
that  he  was  faithful,  hard-working,  and  reasonably 
successful,  without  being  brilliant.  Perhaps  enough 
of  his  strict  New  England  training  still  abode  with  him 
to  hinder  his  advancement.  One  requires  an  ample 
stock  of  native  assurance  and  an  acquired  hardihood 
above  common,  and  must  overboard  with  all  his  fine 
scruples  and  nice  sensitiveness  of  conscience,  if  he 
A  trial  of  jour-  would  get  to  the  top  in  journalism.  It  may 
nahsm.  ke  reasonably  conjectured  that  the  discov 

ery  of  this  had  something  to  do  with  Mr.  Stedman's 
course ;  if  so,  it  is  to  his  credit  that  he  was  not  willing 
to  pay  the  price  of  success  in  the  calling  he  had  igno- 
rantly  chosen.  Another  reason  doubtless  actuated 
him;  he  still  cherished  dreams  of  becoming  a  poet. 
He  had  continued  to  woo  the  Muses  at  intervals,  with 
a  flattering  degree  of  success ;  and  he  had  grounds 
for  hoping  that,  with  added  years  and  experience,  if  he 
could  attain  pecuniary  independence,  he  might  write 
his  name  high  on  the  roll  of  American  singers. 

After  a  brief  experience  of  office-holding,  ui  der 
Attorney-General  Bates,  Mr.  Stedman  returned  to 
New  York,  and  in  1864  became  a  stock-broker.  Those 
were  times  in  which  fortunes  were  daily  made  "on 
the  street,"  and  the  still  youthful  broker  may  he  ve 
cherished  visions  of  a  speedy  retirement,  and  the 


EDMUND   CLARENCE  STEDMAN.  J 

spending  of  the  best  years  of  his  life  among  his  books, 
in  the  practice  of  his  beloved  art.  If  such  Apiungeinto 
were  his  day-dreams,  this  modern  Alnas-  Wal1  Street- 
char  soon  found  them  rudely  shattered.  He  was  not 
long  in  learning  that  if  fortunes  are  quickly  won  in 
Wall  Street,  they  are  as  quickly  swept  away  again. 
It  was  another  lake  of  Tantalus  to  the  would-be  poet. 
Several  times  he  saw  his  fortune  just  within  his  grasp, 
and  once  it  seemed  to  be  fully  attained,  when  a  turn 
of  fortune's  wheel  compelled  him  to  begin  over  again. 
What  seemed  at  the  beginning  to  be  but  the  occupa 
tion  of  a  few  years  at  most,  turned  out  to  be  the 
grinding  work  of  a  lifetime.  Within  a  few  years,  if 
rumor  is  to  be  trusted,  dame  Fortune  has  been  more 
kind,  but  her  favors  have  come  too  late.  The  pro 
ductive  years  of  stalwart  manhood  are  gone.  The 
desire  of  great  achievement  doubtless  remains,  but  the 
full  opportunity  can  never  return.  It  is  the  old  story: 
Ah!  si  la  jeunesse  savait  —  si  la  vieillesse  pouvait ! 
"  When  I  was  a  boy,"  says  Thackeray  somewhere,  "  I 
used  to  pass  a  confectioner's  window.  There  was  taffy 
in  it;  I  wanted  some,  but  the  taffy  was  a  shilling,  and 
I  had  none.  Now  I  have  the  shilling,  but  I  don't  care 
for  taffy." 

II. 

MR.  STEDMAN'S  versifying  began,  as  we  have  seen, 
in  his  college  days.  His  prize  poem  he  has  never 
reprinted,  possibly  because  he  shares  Macaulay's 
opinion  that  a  prize  poem  is  like  a  prize  sheep,  and 


8  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

that  "  prize  sheep  are  good  for  nothing  but  to  make 
tallow  candles,  and  prize  poems  are  good  for  nothing 
but  to  light  them."  It  must  be  confessed  that  Tenny 
son's  "  Timbuctoo  "  is  a  powerful  confirmation  of  this 
theory,  and  it  might  be  difficult  to  name  any  other 
production  that  would  tend  to  disprove  it.  But  Mr. 
Stedman  has  not  exercised  this  severity  in  the  case  of 
all  his  juvenilia,  and  for  this  one  is  grateful,  since  we 
are  now  able  to  trace  the  growth  of  his  genius  and  his 
art  as  we  could  not  otherwise.  What  among  his  early 
writings  he  deemed  worthy  of  preservation,  he  included 
Poems,  Lyric  m  "  P°ems>  Lyric  and  Idyllic,"  which  ap- 
andidymc.  peared  in  i860  with  the  imprint  of  Charles 
Scribner.  The  verses  that  formed  this  volume  may 
still  be  found  in  the  author's  collected  works,  of  which 
they  fill  the  first  eighty-five  pages. 

This  was  a  rather  remarkable  book  for  a  young  man 
of  twenty-seven  to  print,  —  remarkable  chiefly  for  its 
promise,  as  was  but  natural,  but  remarkable  in  some 
measure  for  actual  achievement  also.  The  verse 
manifested  present  as  well  as  potential  power.  We 
find,  what  we  might  expect,  obvious  traces  of  the 
influence  of  other  poets,  the  result  of  generous  admi 
ration  and  unconscious  imitation.  There  is  more  than 
a  suggestion  of  Hood  and  Saxe,  especially  of  the  latter, 
in  "  The  Diamond  Wedding;  "  and  one  asks  himself 
whether  "  Penelope  "  would  have  been  written  except 
by  a  poet  who  had  read  and  even  studied  Tennyson's 
"  Ulysses."  "  Flood  Tide,"  too,  is  in  the  spirit,  as  well 
as  the  measure,  of  "  Locksley  Hall,"  and  couplets  like 


EDMUND   CLARENCE  STEDMAN. 


the  following  might  well  have  been  among  the  frag 
ments  that  the  elder  poet  was  unable  to  work  into  his 
theme :  — 

"  Shame  upon  all  listless  dreamers  early  hiding  from  the  strife, 
Sated  with  some  little  gleaning  of  the  harvest-fields  of  life  ! " 

"  Calm,  and  slowly  lifting  upward,  rose  the  eastern  glory  higher, 
Gilding  sea,  and  shore,  and  vessel,  and  the  city-crowning  spire." 

In  "  The  Sleigh-Ride,"  again,  we  have  a  reminiscence 
of  Shelley,  and  a  little  scrutiny  would  doubtless  detect 
other  cases  of  similarity.  Fortunate  is  the  youthful 
poet  who  chooses  such  masters  as  these  in  his  art. 
But  there  are  verses  here  in  which  the  poet  utters  a 
note  of  his  own ;  "  The  Singer  "  is  a  nearly  perfect  bit 
of  workmanship,  and  "  The  Freshet "  is  an  idyll  that 
only  country-bred  readers  can  fully  appreciate. 

Probably  the  most  spirited  piece  in  the  book  was, 
"  How  Old  Brown  Took  Harper's  Ferry,"  and  it  still 
ranks  among  the  best  poems  inspired  by  Thejohn 
the  event  that  it  commemorates;  indeed,  Brownballad- 
one  is  much  inclined  to  rank  it  above  all  competitors. 
Though  the  poet  skips  the  hard  places  in  Brown's 
Kansas  career,  —  if  he  knew  of  the  Pottawotamie  mas 
sacres  when  he  wrote,  —  he  indulges  in  less  unmeasured 
hero-worship  than  has  been  the  fashion  in  certain  cir 
cles  of  the  North.  But  if  his  poem  would  hardly  have 
passed  muster  then  (and  it  would  still  less  pass  now) 
as  a  cool  historic  estimate  of  John  Brown,  it  is  still 
worthy  of  respect  as  an  outburst  of  lofty  moral  sen 
timent  and  passionate  patriotic  feeling,  however  ill- 


IO  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 

chosen  the  occasion,  or  unworthy  the  object.  Almost 
prophetic,  in  the  light  of  subsequent  events,  seems  this 
closing  stanza,  written  before  Brown's  execution,  in 
answer  to  the  cry  of  "  Hang  him  !  "  that  went  up  from 
the  South :  — 

"  But,  Virginians,  don't  do  it !  for  I  tell  you  that  the  flagon, 
Filled  with  blood  of  Old  Brown's  offspring,  was  first  poured 

by  Southern  hands ; 
And  each  drop  from  Old  Brown's  life-veins,  like  the  red  gore 

of  the  dragon, 

May  spring  up  a  vengeful  Fury,  hissing  through  your  slave- 
worn  lands ! 

And  Old  Brown, 
Ossawatomie  Brown, 

May  trouble  you  more  than  ever,  when  you  've  nailed  his  coffin 
down  !  " 

The  publication  of  this  volume  may  have  convinced 
the  judicious  few  that  a  poet  had  appeared  who  "  knew 
to  sing  and  build  the  lofty  rhyme,"  but  it  certainly 
made  no  great  sensation.  On  the  whole,  it  may  be 
said  to  have  been  "  favorably  received,"  —  a  phrase 
that  has  a  pretty  sound  and  is  usefully  vague.  The 
times  were  not  auspicious  for  the  launching  of  poeti 
cal  ventures.  The  people  of  the  North  were  too 
intent  on  sterner  themes  to  regard  verses,  except 
such  as  had  a  martial  ring  or  appealed  to  the  rising 
antislavery  fervor.  The  John  Brown  ballad  was  the 
only  poem  that  was  keyed  to  the  feeling  of  the  day, 
and  therefore  the  book  had  only  un  succh  cTestime, 
though  it  deserved  more.  All  things  considered,  it 
was  fortunate  to  escape  a  worse  fate. 


EDMUND   CLARENCE  STEDMAN.  II 


III. 

THE  second  period  of  Mr.  Stedman's  poetic  activity 
is  the  decade  between  1860  and  1870.  It  is  distin 
guished  by  the  publication  of  two  volumes,  —  "  Alice 
of  Monmouth  "  (New  York,  1864)  and  "  The  Blameless 
Prince"  (Boston,  1869),  —  and  was  rounded  off  by  the 
issue  in  1873  of  a  complete  edition  of  the  poetical 
works,  bearing  the  imprint  of  Ticknor  and  Fields.  It 
was  during  this  ten  or  twelve  years  that  the  greater 
part  of  Mr.  Stedman's  work  as  poet  was  done.  Ab 
sorbed  as  he  was,  first  by  the  most  exacting  and 
exhausting  of  callings,  and  afterwards  by  the  hardly 
less  distracting  cares  of  business,  he  was  quite  unable 
to  repress  the  spirit  that  strove  within  him  for  utter 
ance  in  verse. 

"  Alice  of  Monmouth  "  was  described  in  the  sub 
title  as  "  An  Idyll  of  the  Great  War,"  and  other  poems 
were  included  in  the  volume.  This  title-poem  was  a 
romance  in  verse.  Experiments  of  this  kind  have  been 
sometimes  phenomenally  successful,  but  not  always. 
Scott  gained  an  unbounded  popularity,  as  Anldyllofthe 
permanent  as  it  was  sudden,  by  means  of  GreatWar- 
his  "  Marmion  "  and  "  The  Lady  of  the  Lake,"  but 
even  he  failed  disastrously  in  some  of  his  later  ven 
tures.  Tennyson,  a  far  greater  poet,  though  he 
measurably  succeeded  in  "  The  Princess,"  failed  dis 
mally  in  "  Maud,"  which  is  only  saved  from  oblivion 
by  two,  or  at  most  three,  exquisite  lyrics  embedded 
in  the  rubbish.  The  younger  Lytton,  as  "  Owen 


12  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

Meredith,"  achieved  immediate  but  transitory  fame 
among  sentimental  misses  with  "  Lucile,"  —  thanks  to 
heroic  stealing  from  George  Sand,  —  but  it  is  now 
pretty  well  agreed  that  while  "  Lucile  "  may  be  a 
romance,  it  is  not  a  poem.  "  Alice  of  Monmouth  " 
was  neither  a  disastrous  failure  nor  a  marvellous  suc 
cess.  It  is  a  story  that  ought  to  have  appealed  to 
American  readers,  in  the  midst  of  the  Civil  War,  with 
peculiar  force.  It  has  poetic  merit  of  a  high  order, 
but  it  never  became  a  popular  book.  This  fate  is  not 
a  little  hard  to  justify,  or  even  to  understand.  There 
was  no  lack  of  popular  interest  in  the  theme ;  readers 
greedily  devoured,  as  fast  as  the  groaning  presses 
could  turn  them  out,  war  novels  of  the  most  trashy 
and  sensational  kind,  written  in  an  indescribable  style, 
that  can  be  pronounced  neither  English  nor  American ; 
there  seemed  to  be  literally  no  limit  to  the  appetite  of 
the  public  for  reading  of  this  kind.  It  may  be  that 
the  workmanship  of  this  poem  was  too  fine,  its  passion 
too  sublimated,  its  charm  too  ethereal,  to  please  the 
multitude.  It  is  still  so  unfamiliar  to  American  readers, 
of  more  than  ordinary  intelligence  and  culture,  that 
one  might  quote  from  it  almost  anywhere  and  vainly 
challenge  a  roomful  of  such  people  to  identify  the 
passage.  One  exception  should  be  noted,  —  which, 
however,  is  only  partially  an  exception,  —  and  that  is 
the  spirited  "  Cavalry  Song,"  which  is  the  fifth  number 
of  Part  XI.  of  the  poem :  — 

"  Our  good  steeds  snuff  the  evening  air, 
Our  pulses  with  their  purpose  tingle  ; 


EDMUND   CLARENCE  STEDMAN.  13 

The  foeman's  fires  are  twinkling  there  ; 
He  leaps  to  hear  our  sabres  jingle ! 

HALT! 

Each  carbine  sends  its  whizzing  ball : 
Now,  cling  !  clang  !  forward  all, 
Into  the  fight !  " 

This  song  of  three  stanzas  is,  as  it  deserves  to  be, 
one  of  the  best  known  and  most  admired  of  Stedman's 
poems.  Yet  it  is  safe  to  say,  not  one  in  a  thousand 
of  those  who  have  read  it  in  some  anthology  of 
American  verse  holds  it  for  anything  but  an  indepen 
dent  lyric,  or  would  fail  to  be  astonished  on  hearing 
that  it  is  but  a  small  portion  of  a  poem  of  some  fifty 
closely  printed  octavo  pages. 

"  The  Blameless  Prince  "  is  even  less  known.      In 
this  case  one  cannot  wish  the  verdict  of  the  public 
reversed.     It  is  not  a  wholesome  poem.     A  vein  of 
cynicism  runs  through  it  that  quite  vitiates  The  Blame, 
it  for  those  who  still  believe  that  men  are   less  Prince-  ••'• 
true  and  women  chaste.      The  burden  of  the  story  is 
that  those  who  are  praised  by  the  world  for  purity  and 
honor  are  sinners  in  secret;   and  yet,  being  such  sin 
ners,  deserve  that  we  should  pity  and  spare  them,  for 

"  He  who  brightest  is,  and  best, 
Still  may  fear  the  secret  test 
That  shall  try  his  heart  aright" 

A  tale  whose  moral  is  so  immoral  is  deservedly 
neglected  by  readers.  It  is  the  one  thing  in  all  Mr. 
Stedman's  writings,  whether  verse  or  prose,  that  is  not 
clean  and  bracing. 


14  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

In  the  collected  poems  of  1873  were  most  of  those 
with  which  Mr.  Stedman's  name  is  most  closely  con 
nected,  —  those  of  which  one  instinctively  thinks 
whenever  his  name  is  mentioned.  There  were  four 
spirited  war-lyrics  —  "  Sumter,"  "  Wanted  —  a  Man," 
"  Gettysburg,"  and  "  Kearney  at  Seven  Pines "  — 
The  first "  com-  wm'cn>  of  their  kind,  are  scarcely  surpassed 

plete  "  edition.     jn     Qur     literature.        All    of    these    but     the 

"Sumter"  have  been  included,  along  with  the 
"  Cavalry  Song,"  in  the  collection  of  "  American  War 
Ballads  and  Lyrics  "  made  by  Mr.  George  Gary  Eggles- 
ton ;  and  every  reader  of  taste  will  pronounce  them  to 
be  among  the  very  best  things  in  the  two  volumes. 
Very  few  of  the  great  mass  of  poems  called  forth  by 
the  Civil  War  still  stir  the  blood  like  these. 

Verses  of  a  more  peaceful  sort  were  also  first 
gathered  in  this  volume.  "  Pan  in  Wall  Street "  is 
Deservedly  a  prime  favorite  with  everybody  who  can 
appreciate  a  blend  of  fancy  and  humor.  Who  has  not 
felt  the  charm  of"  Laura,  My  Darling,"  the  poem/ar 
excellence  of  all  wedded  lovers  ?  What  reminiscences 
of  boyhood  days  and  rural  sports  in  "  Country  Sleigh 
ing"  and  "The  Doorstep,"  —  the  latter  worthy  to  live 
alongside  of  "  Zekle's  Courtin'."  And  where  is  there 
a  prettier  child's  poem  than  "  What  the  Winds  Bring"  ? 

In  all  these  later  poems  there  is  but  one  that  even 
suggests  the  manner  of  any  other  poet.  One  may  be 
wrong  about  that  instance,  but  in  the  "  Dartmouth 
Ode"  are  tones  that  seem  like  echoes  of  Lowell's 
"  Commemoration  Ode."  The  resemblance  is  more 


EDMUND   CLARENCE  STEDMAN.  15 

in  the  structure  of  the  verse  and  the  general  manner 
than  in  anything  more  specific,  except  in  one  case  to 
be  noted.  Of  any  actual  imitation  there  is  of  course 
no  trace ;  there  are  no  verbal  similarities ;  there  is  not 
even  the  same  manner  of  handling  the  theme;  and 
the  theme  itself  is  distinct  from  that  of  Lowell's  ode, 
though  similar.  Still,  the  eighth  strophe,  in  which  the 
character  of  Chase  is  described  and  eulogized,  im 
presses  one  as  strikingly  like  Lowell's  familiar  tribute 
to  Lincoln.  The  impression  is  so  spontaneous  and 
so  strong,  one  can  hardly  resist  an  inference  that 
Lowell's  ode  suggested  in  some  degree  Mr.  Stedman's, 
and  in  particular  that  the  two  passages  specified  are 
thus  related.  One  hesitates  about  saying  this,  but 
as  the  resemblance  is  no  closer  than  Mr.  Stedman  has 
himself  traced  between  Tennyson  and  Theocritus,  it 
can  do  no  harm  to  let  it  stand.  It  is  certainly  no 
worse  to  owe  a  hint  to  a  contemporary  poet  than  to 
one  who  has  been  dead  long  enough  to  be  forgotten, 
though  perhaps  the  choice  is  less  prudent. 

Mr.  Stedman's  latest  verse  has  shown  no  falling-off 
from  that  of  his  prime.  He  had  not  passed  his  prime, 
indeed,  when  his  last  book  appeared,  —  "  Hawthorne 
and  Other  Poems"  (Boston,  1876).  These  verses  were 
included  in  the  "  Household  Edition  "  of  his  poetical 
works  (Boston,  1884).  On  various  occasions,  unfor- 
nately  too  infrequent,  he  has  broken  silence  since  that 
time,  but  he  has  published  no  volume.  His  careful 

FTM  .  .1   .        i  «  workmanship. 

There    is,   m  this    latest   verse,    the   same 

careful  and  conscientious  literary  art,  the  same  high 


1 6  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

purpose,  that  mark  all  his  best  work.  None  of  our 
American  poets  has  been  less  content  with  "  the  first 
fine  careless  rapture  "  of  song,  none  has  spared  less 
the  labor  of  the  file.  Not  that  his  poems  appear 
labored,  that  they  smell  of  the  lamp  —  that  were  indeed 
crude  literary  art ;  rather  his  verse  by  its  very  perfect- 
ness  of  form,  its  apparently  unstudied  simplicity  and 
easy  grace,  gives  token  of  the  severe  labor  without 
which  this  supreme  excellence  is  unattainable. 

IV. 

WITH  the  interruption  of  his  original  work,  began 
Mr.  Stedman's  labors  as  a  critic.  A  sort  of  introduc 
tion  to  this  was  the  editing,  in  conjunction  with  Mr. 
T.  B.  Aldrich,  of  "  Cameos  from  Landor"  (Boston, 
1874).  His  actual  critical  work,  however,  was  not 
undertaken  until  the  following  year,  when  the  first  of 
what  proved  to  be  an  extended  series  of  essays  was 
Victorian  published  in  "  Scribner's  Magazine  "  (now 
Poets  of  "  The  Century ").  One  series  of  these 

America. 

essays  was  collected  into  a  volume,  with 
the  title  "  Victorian  Poets"  (Boston,  1875,  London, 
1876);  another  and  later  collection  being  entitled 
"Poets  of  America"  (Boston,  1886).  The  popularity 
of  both  volumes  was  immediate,  great,  and  well  de 
served  ;  the  former  has  reached  its  twenty-first  edition, 
while  the  latter  is  in  its  eleventh.  Nor  is  the  reason 
of  this  popularity  far  to  seek.  For  the  service  under 
taken  in  these  essays  but  one  other  American  could 
be  thought  of  as  the  author's  equal  in  equipment ; 


EDMUND   CLARENCE  STEDMAN.  IJ 

and  while  to  Lowell  we  may  concede  equal  or  superior 
learning  and  breadth  of  vision,  and  a  style  quite  un 
approachable,  we  cannot  grant  that  in  equipoise,  in 
impartial  judgment,  in  coolness  of  mind,  he  was  Mr. 
Stedman's  equal.  Lowell,  had  he  attempted  a  similar 
task,  would  have  written  delightful  essays,  in  them 
selves  contributions  of  high  value  to  our  literature, 
apart  from  their  critical  content;  but  in  saying  this 
does  not  one  hint  at  their  probable  defect?  They 
would  have  been  rather  literature  than  criticism.  In 
our  author's  case,  temperament,  scholarship,  and  ex 
perience  combined  to  make  him  almost  the  ideal 
critic.  While  by  no  means  incapable  of  generous 
admiration,  he  is  not  prone  to  let  the 

His  equipment 

warmth  of  his  emotion  obscure  the  clear-  asa  critic- 
ness  of  his  mental  operations.  His  judgment  is  not 
biassed  by  affection;  he  knows  how  to  be  kindly  just, 
but  he  does  not  know  how  to  be  weakly  partial.  The 
partisan  of  no  theory  of  art,  the  champion  of  no  school, 
a  citizen  of  the  world,  his  candid  spirit  and  catholic 
taste  inspire  confidence,  not  merely  in  the  rectitude  of 
his  intent,  but  in  the  trustworthiness  of  his  interpreta 
tions,  the  correctness  of  his  canons,  and  the  accuracy 
of  his  conclusions.  The  uninstructed  reader  instinct 
ively  feels  that  he  is  following  a  safe  guide  ;  and,  while 
the  instructed  reader  may  differ  from  the  critic  on 
questions  of  detail,  he  will  differ  seldom,  and  then 
with  modest  self-distrust;  and  he  is  not  likely  to  dis 
pute  the  sincerity  or  sanity  of  that  which  he  declines 
to  accept  as  authoritative. 


1 8  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

Every  man  has  the  defects  of  his  qualities,  as  the 
French  say.  Mr.  Stedman  is  so  thorough  an  artist  in 
verse,  he  comprehends  so  fully  the  resources  as  well 
as  the  limitations  of  his  art,  that  he  lacks  patience  with 
one  who  seems  careless  of  the  mere  form  of  expression. 
This  makes  his  criticism  of  Browning  unsatisfactory, 
because  unsympathetic.  All  that  he  says  is  true,  or  at 
Hisiimita-  least  ingenious,  but  one  is  conscious  through- 
tlons*  out  the  essay  that  the  critic  has  failed  to  grasp 

and  express  the  whole  truth.  Indeed,  no  man  to  whom 
poetry  is  primarily  an  art  can  understand  Browning. 
Mr.  Stedman  fails,  with  the  best  intentions  in  the 
world,  frankly  and  sincerely  to  admire  Browning,  and 
his  attempt  to  force  an  admiration  that  he  does  not 
feel  makes  his  criticism  less  valuable  than  is  its  wont. 
This  is  the  more  curious,  because  he  so  ardently  ad 
mires  Walt  Whitman,  —  a  man  who  was  not  only  not 
an  artist,  but  who  lost  no  opportunity  to  tell  the  world 
how  much  he  despised  art. 

One  of  Mr.  Stedman's  largest  critical  undertakings 
has  been  the  editing,  in  connection  with  Miss  Ellen 
The  Library  M.  Hutchinson,  of  a  "  Library  of  American 
Li££t"rean  Literature"  (New  York,  1888-1891).  This 
library  has  filled  ten  large  octavo  volumes.  The 
making  of  the  selections,  and  the  preparation  of  the 
large  amount  of  critical  and  biographical  matter 
accompanying  them,  gave  abundant  scope  for  the 
exercise  of  the  largest  learning,  the  soundest  judg 
ment,  and  the  best  taste.  Regarding  the  value  of  his 
labors  there  is  no  difference  of  opinion.  By  common 


EDMUND   CLARENCE  STEDMAN.  19 

consent  this  is  the  completest  collection  of  representa 
tive  writings  of  American  authors,  and  the  best  guide 
to  a  systematic  study  of  our  literature,  that  has  ever 
been  made. 

The  latest  claim  of  Mr.  Stedman  on  our  gratitude 
is  the  publication  of  his  lectures  on  "  The  Nature  and 
Elements  of  Poetry."  In  this  volume  he  at  once  dis 
cusses  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  art  of  poetry 
and  illustrates  them  from  the  practice  of  the  great 
masters  of  the  art.  The  book  is  thus  both  creed  and 
criticism.  He  has  little  faith  in  untutored  genius,  in 
those  who  compose  by  the  light  of  nature  The  Nature  and 

0  Elements  of 

and  pour  forth  in  the  ears  of  an  astonished  Poetry. 
world  "  their  profuse  strains  of  unpremeditated  art.'* 
To  him  poetry  is  not  merely  an  art,  but  the  noblest 
of  the  arts,  and  not  the  least  difficult, —  as  little  to  be 
acquired  without  study  and  practice  as  likely  to  be 
acquired  by  practice  and  study  solely 

Definition  of  terms  is  always  desirable  and  generally 
indispensable;  and  a  definition  of  poetry  is  none  the 
less  helpful  in  a  discussion  of  this  kind  because  the 
thing  to  be  defined  is  vague  and  elusive,  and  refuses 
to  be  adequately  expressed  in  words.  Mr.  Stedman's 
definition  is  broad  and  inclusive,  yet  sufficiently  defi 
nite  :  "  Poetry  is  rhythmical,  imaginative  language, 
expressing  the  invention,  taste,  thought,  passion,  and 
insight,  of  the  human  soul."  It  is  the  art  of  expression 
in  verse,  in  briefer  terms.  But  this  implies,  first  of  all, 
that  the  poet  have  some  thought  requiring  imaginative 
expression,  and  that  he  be  capable  of  giving  his 


2O  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY, 

thought  a  fitting  form.  This  is  why  he  is  poet  (poietes, 
maker,  creator),  and  without  this  he  is  a  mere  mechan 
ical  versifier.  But  how  to  have  such  a  thought? 
This  requires  "  the  vision  and  the  faculty  divine,"  the 
power  to  see  into  the  very  heart  of  things,  the  creative 
insight  —  what,  in  a  word,  we  mean  by  "  genius." 
But  thus  far  poetry  is  not  sufficiently  differentiated 
from  prose;  we  need  the  further  qualification  that  it 
is  the  rhythmical  expression  of  the  visions  of  genius. 
Even  this  does  not  completely  differentiate  poetry 
from  prose,  for  there  is  a  prose  rhythm,  and  prose 
may  be  so  imaginative,  so  like  to  poetry  in  all  save 
form,  as  to  be  best  described  by  the  term  "  poetic 
prose."  The  rhythm  of  poetry  is  marked  by  regularity, 
while  the  characteristic  of  prose  rhythm  is  flexibility 
and  variety.  Just  as  soon  as  sentences  become  rhyth 
mical  according  to  a  fixed  alternation  of  syllable  and 
accent,  in  regular  sequence,  the  form  of  expression  is 
no  longer  prose  but  verse.  Mr.  Stedman's  definition 
Poetry  defined,  should,  therefore,  be  amended  somewhat  as 
follows :  "  Poetry  is  the  expression  in  imaginative 
language  and  in  regular  rhythm,  of  the  human  soul's 
invention,  taste,  thought,  passion,  and  insight." 

That  this  element  of  regularity  is  the  differentiating 
feature  of  verse,  becomes  evident  when  one  examines 
the  masters  of  prose.  There  is  rhythmical,  imagina 
tive  language  in  the  prose  of  Milton,  of  Landor,  of 
De  Quincey,  of  Carlyle ;  but  no  two  successive  sen 
tences  have  the  same  rhythm.  In  whole  pages  of 
Dickens  and  of  Blackmore,  on  the  other  hand,  one 


EDMUND   CLARENCE   S  TED  MAN.  21 

finds  that  regularity  of  rhythm  which  is  distinctive  of 
verse.  Some  of  the  most  sonorous  and  majestic  pas 
sages  in  English  literature  would  be  spoiled  by  the 
change  of  a  word  here  and  there,  in  no  way  affecting 
the  sense,  but  utterly  destroying  the  rhythm ;  while 
the  prose  style  of  Dickens  and  Blackmore  would  be 
happily  mended  by  such  changes  as  would  break  up 
the  regularity  of  their  rhythmical  passages. 

Rhythmical  regularity,  however,  is  only  one  aspect 
of  the  form  of  expression  that  we  call  poetry.  Given 
this,  and  the  fundamental  intuition  of  genius,  poetry 
becomes  effective,  according  to  Mr.  Stedman,  through 
beauty,  feeling,  and  imagination.  Any  work  of  art 
that  produces  a  serious  and  lasting  impression  will  be 
found  in  the  end  to  owe  its  effect  to  beauty.  That 
which  is  merely  bizarre  and  audacious  can  have  no 
enduring  charm,  and  endurance  is  the  test  of  worth  in 
art.  Beauty  in  poetry  is  of  two  kinds:  beauty  of 
construction  and  beauty  of  detail.  Of  the  Beauty  the 
former,  the  chief  element  is  simplicity,  ofpoetr™"11 
which  must  be  attained  through  naturalness ;  while  in 
the  case  of  the  latter,  richness  and  variety  must  be 
carefully  restrained  from  the  vice  of  over  decoration. 
But,  above  all,  poetry  to  be  beautiful  must  have  the 
attribute  that  we  can  name  yet  cannot  describe,  — 
charm. 

A  step  further  Mr.  Stedman  goes.  Truth  and 
beauty,  in  the  last  reduction,  he  declares  to  be  equiv 
alent  terms,  and  "  beauty  is  the  unveiled  shining 
countenance  of  truth,"  —  a  prose  version  of  Keats's 


22  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

"  Beauty  is  truth,  truth  beauty,  —  that  is  all 
Ye  know  on  earth,  and  all  ye  need  to  know." 

It  follows  from  this  that  a  truth,  to  be  beautiful, 
must  be  a  whole  truth.  This  principle  excludes  from 
poetry  all  didacticism,  which  is  essentially  the  preach 
ment  of  the  gospel  of  half-truths  by  those  who  have 
not  the  insight  to  perceive  the  soul  of  truth,  the 
expression  of  which  is  always  beauty.  In  his  con 
demnation  of  didacticism,  however,  Mr.  Stedman  does 
not  include  that  nobly  philosophical  strain  whose 
is  truth  utterance  is  often  the  prophecy  of  inspira- 
trmh  beauty.  '  tion  {^sc\^  The  didacticism  of  Pope's 
"  Essay  on  Man  "  and  of  Tennyson's  "  In  Memoriam  " 
are  at  the  extreme  poles  of  the  poetic  art ;  the  former 
is  a  collection  of  rhymed  moral  sentiments,  resembling 
poetry  only  in  the  outward  form,  while  the  latter  is  the 
flower  of  Tennyson's  prime,  unsurpassed  in  profound 
feeling,  in  chaste  beauty,  and  in  imaginative  phi 
losophy.  Nor  by  condemning  didacticism  does  Mr. 
Stedman  exclude  from  poetry  the  highest  wisdom, 
that  of  ethics.  He  would  by  no  means  agree  with 
those  who  declare  that  art  and  morals  have  nothing 
in  common.  Mr.  Oscar  Wilde  has  informed  the  world 
that  a  poem  is  either  well-written  or  ill-written,  and 
that  is  all  there  is  of  it.  Be  it  so,  Mr.  Stedman  might 
reply ;  a  poem  is  not  well  written  unless  it  expresses 
the  highest  verities  of  righteousness.  To  infuse  a 
"moral"  into  a  work  of  art  is,  indeed,  to  spoil  it;  but 
that  beauty  which  is  "  the  unveiled  shining  counte 
nance  of  truth  "  will  always  carry  a  moral,  the  more 


EDMUND   CLARENCE  STEDMAN.  2$ 

effective  perhaps  in  that  it  is  not  formally  expressed. 
Baseness  in  art  satiates  without  satisfying;  it  does  not 
bear  the  supreme  test  of  endurance.  Indeed,  there  is 
no  previous  writer  on  the  poetic  art  who  grounds  it  so 
surely  on  an  ethical,  even  a  religious  basis,  Th?  religious 
as  Mr.  Stedman.  In  spirit  he  goes  back  to  basis  of  poetry' 
the  time  when  poetry  and  the  drama  were  adjuncts  of 
a  nation's  religion,  in  that  he  says  :  — 

"  Now  the  artist  not  only  has  a  right,  but  it  is  his  duty,  to 
indulge  an  anthropomorphism  of  his  own.  In  his  conception 
the  divine  power  must  be  the  supreme  poet,  the  matchless 
artist,  not  only  the  transcendency,  but  the  immanence  of  all 
that  is  adorable  in  thought,  feeling,  and  appearance.  Grant 
that  the  Creator  is  the  founder  of  rites  and  institutes  and 
dignities  ;  yet  for  the  idealist  he  conceived  the  sunrise  and 
moonrise,  the  sounds  that  ravish,  the  outlines  that  enchant 
and  sway.  He  sets  the  colors  upon  the  easel,  the  harp  and 
viol  are  his  invention,  he  is  the  model  and  the  clay,  his  voice 
is  in  the  story  and  the  song.  The  love  and  beauty  of  women, 
the  comradeship  of  man,  the  joy  of  student-life,  the  mimic 
life  of  the  drama  as  much  as  the  tragedy  and  comedy  of  the 
living  world,  have  their  sources  in  his  nature  ;  nor  only  gravity 
and  knowledge,  but  also  irony  and  wit  and  mirth.  Arcady 
is  a  garden  of  his  devising.  As  far  as  the  poet,  the  artist,  is 
creative,  he  becomes  a  sharer  of  the  divine  imagination  and 
power,  and  even  of  the  divine  responsibility.  " 

It  is  possible  that  to  many  this  idea  may  seem  daring 
to  the  verge  of  irreverence,  but  that  can  be  only 
because  it  is  a  thought  to  which  they  have 


not  accustomed  themselves.     No  Christian    oE|y7ith  the~ 


24  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

thinker  who  believes  in  the  immanence  of  God  in  his 
universe, — that  in  him,  according  to  the  apostle,  we 
live  and  move  and  have  our  being,  —  will  discover 
anything  disquieting  in  this  theory  of  art.  Rather  will 
it  adjust  itself  to  his  theology  and  to  his  understanding 
of  the  Scriptures  with  perfect  ease,  and  once  compre 
hended  will  seem  to  him  the  only  possible,  as  well  as 
by  far  the  noblest,  conception  of  the  fundamental 
nature  of  art. 

As  to  the  quality  of  poetic  expression,  Mr.  Stedman 
finds  nothing  to  add  to  Milton's  well-known  dictum, 
that  it  should  be  simple,  sensuous,  passionate,  —  that 
is  to  say,  impassioned,  marked  by  intensity  of  emotion. 
Human  passion  has  always  been  and  probably  always 
will  be  the  theme  of  poets  of  the  first  order.  "  In 
truth,"  says  our  author,  "  the  potent  artist,  the  great 
Poetic  expres-  Poet,  is  he  who  makes  us  realize  the  emo 
tion  defined.  tions  Qf  those  who  experience  august 

extremes  of  fortune.  For  what  can  be  of  more  value 
than  intense  and  memorable  sensations?  What  else 
make  up  that  history  which  alone  is  worth  the  name 
of  life?"  The  most  effective  expression,  however,  is 
not  always  the  fullest  expression  in  words ;  Browning 
has  shown  that  the  most  dramatic  effects  are  produced 
by  the  indication  of  suppressed  passion.  The  poet 
no  more  than  the  actor  should  "  tear  a  passion  to 
tatters  "  if  he  wishes  to  reach  the  summit  of  his  art. 

The  poet,  Mr.  Stedman  holds  in  conclusion,  is  not 
merely  a  creator,  but  a  prophet.  His  is  a  vision  not 
enjoyed  by  ordinary  mortals,  and  on  him  is  laid  the 


EDMUND   CLARENCE  STEDMAN.  2$ 

compulsion  to  declare  it.  It  is  required  of  him,  there 
fore,  that  he  believe  in  his  prophecy  as  something 
greater  than  himself.  His  office  is  incompatible  with 
the  scepticism  that  questions  whether  anything  is 
certain,  whether  anything  is  really  worth  while. 
Neither  a  cynic  nor  a  pessimist  can  be  a  great  poet, 
for  the  underlying  motive  of  all  strenuous  effort  and 
high  achievement  is  faith.  Without  such  faith,  become 
vital  in  action,  the  highest  flight  of  poetry  will  not  be 
essayed,  or  will  be  essayed  in  vain. 

To  sum  up  the  results  of  our  examination  of  his 
work,  we  may  say  that  Mr.  Stedman  seems  a  clear 
case  of  arrested  development,  —  a  man  whom  hard 
fate  has  bereft  of  his  highest  achievement.  Poetry  is 
his  native  speech.  Herein  he  differs  from  Mr.  Howells, 
who,  though  the  writer  of  very  creditable  verse,  yet 
finds  in  prose  his  more  natural  utterance.  An  artist  in 
Mr.  Stedman  hardly  ranks  among  the  first  proS"0 
American  writers  of  prose.  We  are  now  considering 
his  style  only,  —  the  mere  form  of  his  expression,  the 
dress  of  his  thought.  His  prose  writings  are  of  high 
value,  but  it  is  a  value  that  does  not  depend  chiefly 
on  their  workmanship.  The  substance  is  sterling, 
and  bears  the  hall-mark  of  genuine  worth ;  the  form 
is  conventionally  correct,  but  lacks  the  unmistakable 
stamp  of  genius.  He  is,  in  other  words,  not  the  artist 
in  prose  that  he  is  in  verse.  His  style  has  no  serious 
faults,  but  it  lacks  flavor,  sparkle,  distinction.  His 
words  do  not,  "  like  so  many  nimble  and  airy  servitors, 


26  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

trip  about  him  at  command."  Now  almost  the  con 
trary,  in  every  particular,  may  be  said  of  his  verse. 
While  he  does  not  rank,  by  virtue  of  what  he  has  ac 
tually  done,  with  the  greatest  of  our  American  poets, 
his  verse  has  a  distinct  flavor  that  one  would  not  like 
to  lose.  His  work,  except  in  that  which  we  may  call 
his  juvenile  period,  could  not  possibly  be  mistaken 
for  the  work  of  any  other  poet.  Much  of  it  is  not 
merely  free  from  technical  faults,  but  is  imaginative, 
tender,  spirited.  It  shows  genius,  and  it  contains  the 
prophecy  of  greater  things  to  be  achieved.  The  un- 
fulfilment  of  that  prophecy  will  be  a  serious  loss  to 
American  letters.  Mr.  Stedman's  place,  nevertheless, 
among  American  authors  can  never  be  anything  but 
a  high  one.  Though  his  achievement  in  verse  has  not 
yet  fulfilled  the  bright  promise  of  his  youth,  though 
His  phce  in  his  mind  is  not  so  opulent  or  his  style  so 

American 

literature.  luxuriant  as  Lowell's,  though  he  lacks  the 
effervescing  wit  of  Holmes,  his  actual  performance  is 
valuable  for  its  cosmopolitan  spirit,  its  broad  culture, 
its  genuine  humor,  its  depth  of  insight,  its  conscien 
tious  workmanship. 


II. 

FRANCIS    PARKMAN. 

AMONG  American  men  of  letters,  none  have  a 
higher  rank  than  the  historians.  Irving,  Pres- 
cott,  and  Motley  are  names  that  are  not  eclipsed  by 
those  of  Gibbon,  Hume,  and  Macaulay.  If  Bancroft 
is  not  ranked  with  these,  it  is  not  because  his  labored 
work  is  inferior  in  scholarly  research,  but  because  the 
style,  now  dry  and  operose,  now  turgid  and  bombastic, 
puts  it  distinctly  among  historical  writings  of  the 
second  class.  But  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the  right 
of  a  fourth  American  to  rank  in  this  company  of  great 
historians.  By  the  unanimous  suffrages  of  competent 
critics,  as  well  as  of  delighted  readers,  this  honor  has 
been  awarded  to  Francis  Parkman. 

I. 

LIKE  Lowell  and  Holmes,  Mr.  Parkman  belonged 
to  the  Brahmin  caste  of  New  England.  Three  genera 
tions  of  ministers  were  among  his  ancestors.  His 
father  was  a  pupil  of  Channing,  president  of  the  asso 
ciation  of  Unitarian  ministers,  founder  of  the  chair  of 
pulpit  eloquence  in  the  theological  department  of 
Harvard  University,  a  divine  of  high  repute  in  his  day 


28  AMERICAN  WRITERS   OF  TO-DAY. 

for  learning,  eloquence,  and  character.  It  was  a 
of  the  Brahmin  brother  of  this  divine  (also  a  Dr.  Parkman, 
caste.  Dut  Doctor  of  Medicine,  not  of  Divinity) 

who  was  murdered  by  his  friend,  Professor  Webster 
—  one  of  the  most  celebrated  cases  in  the  history  of 
American  criminal  jurisprudence.  Francis  Parkman 
was  born  in  Boston,  September  16,  1823,  predestined 
to  the  intellectual  life.  He  was  graduated  at  Harvard 
in  1844,  and  for  two  years  thereafter  studied  law,  but 
finally  abandoned  the  idea  of  a  professional  career. 
It  does  not  appear  that  during  his  boyhood  or  his 
college  days  he  had  shown  any  strong  bent  towards 
literature.  There  are  singularly  few  anecdotes  or 
reminiscences  of  friends  accessible,  and  the  side-lights 
that  such  things  often  throw  on  a  man's  life  and  work 
are  quite  lacking  in  his  case.  One  cannot  discover 
what  turned  him  toward  the  Great  West  and  decided 
his  future  ;  we  only  know  that  in  1846  he  set  out  to 
explore  the  Rocky  Mountains,  and  that  he  lived  for 
some  months  among  the  Dakota  Indians  and  even 
wilder  tribes,  gaining  in  this  way  such  an  intimate 
knowledge  of  aboriginal  customs  and  traditions  as  few 
white  men  have  ever  obtained.  If  it  was  health  that 
he  sought,  this  incursion  into  the  wilderness  was  an 
utter  failure.  The  privations  that  he  was  compelled 
to  endure  sent  him  back  to  civilization  with  a  shattered 
frame,  and  induced  an  affection  of  the  eyes  that  would 
have  ended  the  literary  career  of  any  ordinary  man. 

The  results  of  this  exploration  were  first  given  to 
the  world  in  a  series  of  articles  in  "  Knickerbocker's 


FRANCIS  PARKMAM  29 

Magazine,"  and  at  their  conclusion  were  published  in 
a  volume  called  "  Prairie  and  Rocky  Mountain  Life  " 
(New  York,  1849),  which  title  was  afterwards  changed 
into  "  The  California  and  Oregon  Trail,"  by  which 
name  the  book  has  long  been  known.  It  is  even  now 
delightful  reading,  and  one  can  faintly  imag-  The  Great 
ine  its  fascination  for  a  generation  to  whom  West 
the  Great  West  was  a  region  full  of  mystery  and  ro 
mance.  The  book  was  a  success  in  every  way,  being 
praised  by  the  critics  and  proving  profitable  to  the 
publisher.  This  decided  the  author's  career,  if  there 
was  anything  left  to  be  decided.  It  was  Mr.  Parkman's 
evident  vocation  to  be  a  historian,  though  the  state  of 
his  health  raised  a  doubt  of  his  ability  to  follow  the  call. 
The  field  of  his  labors  was  also  pretty  definitely  de 
limited  by  this  first  success :  it  was  to  be  the  story  of 
the  Indian  nations,  in  their  relation  to  their  white 
conquerors,  the  English  and  the  French;  and  this 
naturally  led  up  to  the  story  of  the  contest  between 
France  and  England  for  the  supremacy  in  North 
America. 

In  a  steady  series  the  books  came  from  the  press, 
with  such  breaks  only  as  thorough  work  required.  In 
1851  "The  Conspiracy  of  Pontiac "  was  published, 
the  failure  of  this  conspiracy  marking  the  downfall  of 
the  power  of  the  Six  Nations.  "  Pioneers  of  France 
in  the  New  World"  followed  in  1865; 

D  '      His  histories. 

"The  Jesuits  in  North  America"  in  1867; 

"  La  Salle  and  the  Discovery  of  the  Great  West  "  in 

1869;    "The    Old    Regime    in    Canada"    in    1874; 


30  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

"Count  Frontenac  and  New  France"  in  1877; 
"Montcalm  and  Wolfe"  in  1884;  and  the  series  was 
concluded  in  1892  with  "  A  Half  Century  of  Con 
flict."  These  works  fill  twelve  goodly  octavos  of  some 
four  hundred  pages  each,  and  constitute  one  of  the 
notable  contributions  to  historical  literature  made 
during  the  nineteenth  century.  The  bulk  of  this 
writing  proclaims  Mr.  Parkman  to  be  one  of  the  most 
industrious  of  historians,  for  it  is  fully  equal  to  the 
great  work  of  Gibbon,  and  is  about  twice  that  of  the 
histories  of  Macaulay  or  Hume.  But  the  mere  bulk 
of  his  writing  is  its  least  remarkable  feature;  that 
establishes  his  industry  only,  and  Mr.  Parkman  was 
a  man  of  genius. 

II. 

BY  what  process  of  reasoning  do  we  justify  the 
custom  of  calling  "  self-made  "  him  alone  who  rises 
to  eminence  from  poverty?  The  fact,  of  course,  is 
that  any  man  is  self-made  who  is  ever  made  at  all. 
Wealth  and  social  position  may  supply  the  opportunity 
of  greatness,  but  they  never  yet  made  a  man  great. 
It  is  a  fair  matter  of  debate,  indeed,  whether  wealth 
The  obstacles  an<^  social  distinction  are  not  distinctly  un- 
Of  wealth.  favorable  to  the  development  of  any  germ 
of  greatness  with  which  a  man  may  have  the  good 
fortune  to  be  endowed  by  nature.  There  is  something 
wholesome  and  bracing  in  poverty.  No  great  race 
has  ever  been  produced  in  an  enervating  tropical 
climate ;  the  manly  virtues  flourish  in  rapidly  increas- 


FRANCIS  PARKMAN*  31 

ing  ratio  as  we  journey  away  from  the  equator.  The 
youth  who  is  born  with  a  golden  spoon  in  his  mouth 
and  is  lapped  in  luxury  from  his  cradle  onward,  has 
not  half  a  chance  to  make  a  man  of  himself.  If  he 
turns  out  a  tolerably  decent  fellow  and  does  a  man's 
work  in  the  world,  he  has  great  reason  to  congratulate 
himself;  while  if  he  proves  to  be  a  man  of  genius  and 
makes  all  mankind  his  debtors,  something  very  like  a 
miracle  has  been  wrought  We  do  well  to  honor  those 
who  have  overcome  the  obstacles  of  poverty  and 
deficient  early  training,  but  let  us  honor  even  more 
those  who  have  conquered  the  temptations  of  wealth 
and  the  flatteries  of  society. 

Mr.  Parkman  inherited  an  ample  fortune,  and  a 
place  in  the  most  cultured  and  refined  circle  of  Boston 
was  his  birthright.  He  might,  without  losing  the 
respect  of  his  class,  have  devoted  himself  to  a  life  of 
elegant  ease  and  learned  leisure.  He  might  have 
cultivated  any  one  or  all  of  several  gentlemanly  and 
costly  tastes.  He  might  have  become  a  bibliomaniac, 
wise  in  first  editions  and  fine  bindings,  or  a  virtuoso 
in  violins  and  vases.  He  might,  equally  without  re 
proach,  have  devoted  himself  to  yachting,  coaching, 
or  some  other  of  the  methods  by  which  the  gilded 
youth  of  America  relieve  themselves  of  their  super 
fluous  dollars  and  kill  the  time  that  hangs  so  heavily 
on  their  well-manicured  hands.  He  might  Hlsabundant 
even  have  become  a  mere  idler,  a  ban  vivant,  labors- 
whom  everybody  calls  "  a  good  fellow,"  —  the  type  of 
man  who  is  envied  by  fools  and  despised  by  the  wise. 


C 


32  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

Nay,  he  might  have  gone  to  the  devil  altogether,  by 
the  old-fashioned  broad  road  well-travelled  of  rich 
young  men.  He  did  none  of  these  things.  Neither 
undervaluing  nor  overvaluing  the  advantages  of  wealth 
and  station,  he  made  them  the  stepping-stones  of  his 
career.  He  labored  with  a  zeal,  an  industry>  an  un 
flagging  purpose,  not  surpassed  by  men  who  have  to 
pull  hard  against  wind  and  tide  to  get  on  in  life.  No 
mechanic  toiling  for  daily  bread  has  been  a  harder 
worker  than  he.  Whether  ambition  or  philanthropy 
was  the  spur  that  urged  him  on,  —  and  there  Is  no 
need  that  we  should  inquire  too  curiously,  —  the  spur 
was  at  any  rate  effective. 

It  is  conceded  on  all  hands  that  Mr  Parkman's 
histories  are  a  contribution  of  the  highest  value  to  our 
knowledge  of  early  American  history.  \They  could 
not  well  fail  to  be  this,  inasmuch  as  they  traverse  a 
field  practically  untrodden,  and  are  based  on  original 
Originality.  sources.1  Few  readers  realize  the  labor 
involved  in  blazing  a  way  through  a  virgin  forest  of 
facts.  But  Mr.  Parkman  has  done  more  than  blaze 
a  way;  he  has  cleared  the  forest  and  brought  the  land 
under  cultivation.  In  other  words,  he  has  done  his 
work  with  such  thoroughness  and  minuteness  of  re 
search,  and  with  such  impartiality  and  accuracy  of 
judgment,  that  it  will  not  require  doing  over  again  for 
many  years  to  come,  if  ever!}  His  search  has  not 
passed  by  any  material  of  value  known  to  exist;  all 
the  ore  in  sight  has  been  mined  and  the  veins  are  ex 
hausted.  Until  new  discoveries  are  made,  little  of 
value  remains  to  be  done. 


FRANCIS  PARKMAN.  33 

This  has  involved  an  immense  deal  of  travel  and 
research  at  first  hand ;  it  has  compelled  no  end  of 
mousing  about  for  hidden  and  unsuspected  sources 
of  knowledge  ;  it  prompted  numerous  visits  to  France, 
where  the  State  archives  were  thrown  open  to  Mr. 
Parkman's  inspection,  and  their  secrets  were  wrung 
from  them  bv,  patient  investigation.  There  was  a 
conscientious  thoroughness  in  this  historian's  research 
that  would  have  won  men's  praise  if  he  had  been  as 
robust  a  man  as  Macaulay,  for  example.  But  this 
indefatigable  worker  was  not  a  robust  man ;  His  extensive 
most  of  his  life  was  passed  in  a  state  of  researches- 
health  but  one  degree  removed  from  invalidism. 
For  the  greater  part  of  his  work  he  was  able  to  use 
his  own  eyes  very  little;  and  months  at  a  time  he 
was  compelled  to  spend  in  a  darkened  room,  in 
imminent  danger  of  total  blindness.  Most  of  his 
research  he  was  compelled  to  prosecute  by  the  aid 
of  other  eyes  than  his  own,  and  his  books  were  for 
the  most  part  composed  by  dictation.  Prescott,  it 
is  recorded,  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life  was  afflicted 
in  a  similar  way,  and  his  brilliant  "  History  of  the 
Conquest  of  Mexico  "  was  composed  in  like  manner; 
but  Mr.  Parkman  worked  by  this  method  during  a 
period  of  forty  years.  Both  the  extent  and  the 
excellence  of  his  work  would  be  remarkable  in  any 
case,  but  are  nothing  less  than  astounding  in  view  of 
these  circumstances. 

One  could  hardly  mention  a  parallel  case  in  the 
whole  history  of  literature.     We  are  accustomed  to 

3 


34  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

think  of  the  composition  of  "  Paradise  Lost "  and  the 
other  great  works  that  Milton  produced  in  his  years 
A  feat  without  °f  blindness,  as  an  unexampled  literary 
parallel  ^^  But  Milton's  task  was  not  to  be 

named  beside  Parkman's  for  difficulty.  The  com 
position  of  an  epic,  being  almost  wholly  an  intel 
lectual  process,  can  be  carried  on  by  the  help  of  an 
amanuensis  with  comparative  ease.  In  historical 
writing  the  mere  work  of  composition  is  the  small 
est  part  of  the  undertaking.  To  collect,  compare, 
and  sift  the  materials  is  an  immense  labor,  even  for 
one  who  has  the  full  use  of  his  eyes,  but  to  depend 
on  the  eyes  of  others  multiplies  the  difficulty  im 
measurably.  Take  a  single  instance:  one  who  can 
use  his  own  eyes  readily  acquires  the  faculty  of  run 
ning  his  glance  rapidly  down  the  page,  singling  out 
the  points  of  interest  or  value  to  him  and  passing  by 
the  rest;  while  one  who  depends  on  another's  eyes 
must  listen  patiently  while  every  word  is  read  to  him, 
lest  he  miss  something  of  consequence.  In  a  thou 
sand  ways  that  imagination  easily  suggests,  he  is  at 
a  disadvantage,  and  the  demands  made  on  his  time 
and  patience  by  this  method  of  working  are  not 
easily  calculable. 

III. 

WHOEVER  comes  after  Mr.  Parkman  can  only  retell 
the  same  story.  It  seems  unlikely  that  any  dis 
coveries  of  material  remain  to  be  made  that  will 
throw  important  light  on  this  period  of  history, 


FRANCIS  PARKMAN.  35 

though  they  may  clear  up  some  details  and  pos 
sibly  compel  modifications  of  judgment  here  and 
there.  The  substance  of  the  story  will  remain  un 
changed.  Can  any  future  historian  hope  to  tell  it 
better  than  Mr.  Parkman?  Who  has  ever  had  the 
courage  to  retell  Gibbon's  story  of  the  decline  and 
fall  of  the  Roman  Empire?  Much  as  has 
been  said,  and  deservedly  said,  of  Mr. 
Parkman's  industry  in  research,  even  mace  may  be 
said,  and  with  no  less  justice,  of  his^rilliancy  of 
style.  Perhaps  "  brilliant "  is  not  the  happiest  epi 
thet  one  could  choose,  for  it  may  convey  to  some 
an  implication  that  the  style  is  unfavorable  to  strict 
veracity.  Of  more  than  one  great  historian  it  has 
been  said,  with  at  least  a  show  of  justice,  that  his 
style  is  one  in  which  no  man  could  possibly  tell  the 
truth.  The  historian  who  affects  the  grand  manner, 
who  makes  much  use  of  antithesis  and  metaphor, 
who  overloads  his  pages  with, allusion  and  quota 
tion, —  a  historian,  in  a  word,  who  is  chiefly  a  rhet 
orician,  —  is  morally  certain  to  be  untrustworthy  in 
details.  The  desire  to  make  an  effective  sentence 
will,  unconsciously  to  himself,  often  prove  superior 
to  the  desire  to  tell  the  truth.  Mr.  Froude  stands  a 
melancholy  example  for  all  time  of  this  principle. 
Mr.  Parkman's  brilliancy  is  not  rhetorical,  in  the 
conventional  sense  of  that  term ;  that  is,  he  does  not 
produce  his  effects  by  the  free  use  of  the  artifices 
and  ornaments  of  style  described  and  illustrated  at 
length  in  the  standard  treatises  on  rhetoric. 


36  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

If  Mr.  Parkman  had  been  a  novelist  he  would  be 
classed  as  a  realist,  for  he  has  carried  the  realistic 
method  into  history  as  no  other  man  of  our  time  has 
done  itXPicturesqueness  is  a  striking  feature  of  his 
style ;  his  descriptions  do  not  impress  one  as  beauti 
ful,  though  they  are  that,  but  as  vivid,  and,  above  all, 
as  truthful.  ^l  his  is  precisely  what  they  are.  The 
historian  has  made  his  sketch  on  the  spot  and  from 
nature,  precisely  as  a  painter  would  do  it,  and  with 
the  same  fidelity  to  detail  that  a  painter  would  study. 
A  similar  .method  and  effect  are  discernible  in  all 
vhis  descriptions  of  character.  Not  only 

Ficturesqueness. 

are  the  great  personages  in  his  pages  — 
Pontiac  and  La  Salle,  Montcalm  and  Wolfe — drawn 
with  wonderful  clearness  and  actually  made  to  live 
and  move  before  us,  but  most  of  the  men  who  re 
ceive  more  than  a  passing  mention  are  sketched  wjth 
equal  fidelity  and  effectiveness.  As  the  skilled  artist, 
by  a  few  strokes  of  the  crayon,  catches  and  repro 
duces  the  expression  of  a  face  with  a  power  that  an 
elaborate  oil  portrait  often  fails  to  equal,  so  by  a 
phrase  or  a  sentence  interjected  here  and  there  into 
his  narrative  Mr.  Parkman  has  outlined  the  character 
of  scores  of  men,  and  we  know  them  better  than 
through  pages  of  description  by  most  writersA 

When  the  "  Saturday  Review "  praises  anything 
American,  we  are  warranted  in  concluding  that  it 
must  be  very  good  indeed.  The  "  Saturday  Review  " 
concedes  that  the  writings  of  Mr.  Parkman  are  certain 
of  a  permanent  place  among  the  most  important  his- 


FRANCIS  PARKMAN.  37 

torical  literature  of  our  age.  And  it  bases  its  pre 
diction,  not  on  the  industry  and  accuracy  of  the  his 
torian,  but  on  the  excellence  of  the  style.  Recognition 
It  recognizes  in  him  a  great  artist,  as  well  : 
as  a  diligent  scholar,  one  who  had  the  instinct  of 
selection,  the  sense  of  perspective,  the  gift  of  co 
ordinating  and  grouping  materials,  —  in  short,  the 
creative  power  that  out  of  a  chaos  of  facts  evolves 
the  cosmos  that  men  call  a  great  historical  work. 
We  may  pardon  the  tone  of  condescension,  and  even 
of  surprise,  in  which  it  is  admitted  that  some  good 
thing  does  occasionally  come  out  of  America,  in 
view  of  the  substantial  justice  of  the  verdict.  Mr. 
Parkman's  laurels  were  thus  awarded  by  that  con 
temporaneous  posterity,  a  foreign  nation. 


IV. 


IT  should  not  be  inferred  from  anything  that  has 
been  said  of  Mr.  Parkman's  methods  of  work  that  he 
was  through  life  a  cloistered  recluse.  On  the  con 
trary,  he  was  a  man  of  the  world  quite  as  much  as  a 
man  of  letters.  His  books  alone  would  warrant  the 
inference  that  he  knew  men,  that  he  studied  them 
closely  and  at  first  hand,  with  careful  observation  of 
their  character  and  motives.  This  could  never  be 
done  by  one  who  shut  himself  up  with  books  and 
musty  manuscripts.  Gibbon  has  told  us,  in  a  some 
what  celebrated  passage,  of  the  help  he  derived  from 


38  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

his  service  in  the  militia:  "The  discipline  and  evolu 
tions  of  a  modern  battalion  gave  me  a  clearer  notion 
Man  of  the  °^  ^  Phalanx  and  the  legion;  and  the 
world.  captain  of  the  Hampshire  grenadiers  (the 

reader  may  smile)  has  not  been  useless  to  the  his 
torian  of  the  Roman  Empire."  It  was  no  less  ad 
vantageous  to  Mr.  Parkman  to  improve  his  social 
opportunities.  He  was  always  a  favorite  in  Boston 
society,  where  his  talk  was  held  to  be  quite  as  bril 
liant  as  his  writing.  He  was  also  what  Dr.  Johnson 
would  have  termed  an  eminently  "  clubbable  "  man, 
and  for  a  series  of  years  was  president  of  the  far- 
famed  St.  Botolph's  Club.  For  many  years  he  was 
one  of  the  seven  corporators  of  Harvard  University^ 
and  gave  much  of  his  time  and  thought  to  the  affairs 
of  that  institution.  By  thus  keeping  in  touch  with 
his  fellows  and  his  age,  he  avoided  that  scholarly 
aloofness  from  practical  affairs  which  gives  an  air  of 
unreality  to  the  work  of  so  many  men  of  letters. 

Mr.  Parkman  was,  in  fact,  one  of  the  few  Ameri 
cans  who  know  how  to  play  as  well  as  how  to  work. 
Play  —  by  which  one  means,  of  course,  any  innocent 
amusement,  any  exercise  of  the  faculties  of  body  or 
mind  for  recreation  —  has  its  place  in  a  true  phi 
losophy  of  life,  not  as  a  thing  permissible 
merely,  but  as  a  duty.  It  is  no  more  to 
be  disregarded  than  sleep  or  the  taking  of  food.  It 
is  a  thing  of  which  no  man  need  be  ashamed,  or  for 
which  he  should  apologize.  It  may  be  made  a  vice, 
just  as  eating  may  become  gluttony,  but  play  is  no 


FRANCIS  PARKMAN.  39 

more  dissipation  than  rest  is  laziness.  Most  adult 
Americans  do  not  know  how  to  play,  and  when  they 
take  recreation  do  it  in  a  secret  or  half  shame 
faced  way.  Our  men  and  women  are  ranging  them 
selves  in  two  classes,  —  those  who  never  play  and 
those  who  never  do  anything  else.  It  is  hard  to 
choose  between  the  incorrigible  idler  who  lives  only 
for  pleasure  and  the  incorrigible  worker  who  lives 
only  for  his  business  or  profession.  It  is  a  wise 
public  sentiment  that  insists  on  every  man's  working^ 
even  if  he  has  inherited  wealth,  but  society  should 
add  to  its  law  an  edict  that  all  men  should  play  also. 
Those  who  live  long  and  accomplish  much  are  for 
the  most  part  men  who  know  how  to  play.  Glad 
stone  is  a  famous  chopper  of  trees,  and  Lord  Palmer- 
ston  rode  to  hounds  up  to  his  last  years. 

It  was,  perhaps,  fortunate  for  Mr.  Parkman  that  his 
health  compelled  him  to  play,  to  seek  some  out-door 
recreation.  He  chose  horticulture  as  the  secondary 
business  of  his  life,  and  as  he  could  do  nothing  with 
out  doing  it  well,  he  became  one  of  the  Horticultural 
best  amateur  gardeners  of  our  country,  if,  Pursuits- 
indeed,  he  did  not  rather  deserve  to  be  called  a  pro 
fessional.  He  labored  with  his  own  hands  at  the  art, 
as  anybody  must  who  really  loves  it,  no  matter  how 
rich  he  may  be,  but  he  also  employed  his  purse 
liberally  in  the  gratification  of  what  came  to  be  with 
him  a  hobby.  His  residence  was  surrounded  by 
ample  grounds,  and  in  these  he  had  a  notable  col- 


40  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

lection  of  rare  and  beautiful  trees,  shrubs,  and  plants. 
He  was  particularly  successful  in  the  culture  of  aquatic 
plants,  and  it  was  largely  through  his  intelligent 
enthusiasm  that  amateur  gardening  has  been  made 
a  favorite  by-pursuit  of  professional  and  business 


men. 


It  is  hardly  correct  to  call  Mr.  Parkman  an  amateur 
gardener,  as  has  already  been  hinted,  though  he  was 
never  a  "  professional "  in  the  usual  sense  of  that 
term,  which  commonly  defines  one  who  is  a  gar 
dener  for  revenue  only,  or  mainly.  As  is  almost 
inevitable  in  the  case  of  one  who  handles  pen  and 
spade  with  equal  skill,  he  made  literary  use  of  his 
His  Book  of  horticultural  experience,  and  his  "Book 
Rises.00  of  ROSes,"  published  in  1866,  was  highly 
esteemed  among  all  rosarians,  amateur  and  profes 
sional.  In  1871  Mr.  Parkman  was  elected  professor 
of  horticulture  in  the  agricultural  school  of  Harvard, 
and  filled  the  chair  with  eminent  ability  for  two 
years.  Had  his  health  permitted  him  a  longer  di 
version  from  the  chief  work  of  his  life,  he  would, 
doubtless,  have  remained  in  a  position  to  which  his 
love  for  the  subject  would  have  attracted  him  so 
strongly.  He  was  right,  however,  not  to  let  his  play 
become  his  work. 

At  one  time  it  seemed  likely  that  the  historian 
would  allow  himself  another  diversion,  by  making 
occasional  excursions  into  fiction.  In  1856  he  pub 
lished  a  novel  called  "  Vassall  Morton,"  about  which 


FRANCIS  PARKMAN.  41 

one  can  learn  little  more  than  the  name,  the  date  of 
publication,  and  the  fact  that  the  scene  of  the  story 
is  partly  in  America  and  partly  in  Europe.  One 
may,  perhaps,  infer,  without  more  accurate  infor 
mation,  that  the  book  was  not  more  than 

His  one  novel. 

moderately  successful.  This  was,  all  things 
considered,  a  fortunate  circumstance,  as  a  marked 
success  might  have  diverted  the  author's  attention 
from  the  work  that  he  has  accomplished.  Some 
fragments  of  his  earlier  composition  suggest  that 
Macaulay,  had  he  chosen  to  devote  himself  to  fiction, 
might  have  made  a  name  as  great  as  that  of  Scott ; 
but  who  would  exchange  his  history  for  a  shelf-full 
of  romances?  And  on  the  other  hand,  who  would 
exchange  the  Waverley  novels  for  a  shelf-full  of  his 
tories?  It  is  well  in  each  case  that  the  shoemaker 
stuck  to  his  last,  —  that  the  writer  faithfully,  and  even 
doggedly,  continued  to  do  the  kind  of  work  for  which, 
on  the  whole,  he  was  best  fitted. 

Long  before  his  death,  we  ceased  to  say  of  Mr. 
Parkman  that  his  best  work  was  probably  to  come. 
On  the  contrary,  the  reasonable  forecast  in  his  case 
seemed  to  be  that  his  work  was  substantially  done. 
The  plan  of  his  history  was  completed,  and  it  was 
not  likely  that  he  would  attempt  another  enterprise. 
We  looked  upon  him  as  one  entitled  to  spend  the 
remainder  of  his  days  in  peace,  enjoying  the  pleas 
ures  of  society  and  of  nature,  honored  by  all  who  can 
appreciate  patient  labor,  broad  scholarship,  historic 


42  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 

insight,  and  a  style  that  illustrates  the  sparkle,  the 
richness,  and  the  melody  of  the  English  tongue. 
And  when  he  died,  though  we  felt  his  loss  as  almost 
that  of  a  personal  friend,  we  had  a  serene  conscious 
ness  that  his  name  is  securely  enrolled  among  the 
immortals. 


III. 

WILLIAM    DEAN    HOWELLS. 

ONE  may  easily  doubt,  though  he  be  never  so 
ardent  an  advocate  of  classical  study,  whether 
a  knowledge  of  Greek  and  Latin  literature  is  any 
essential  part  of  the  equipment  of  a  successful  man 
of  letters.  From  the  great  dramatist  who  had 
"small  Latin  and  less  Greek  "  to  the  latest  maga 
zine  scribbler,  a  cloud  of  witnesses  rise  up  in  pro 
test  against  the  idea  that  college  training  The  university 
tends  to  make  a  man  a  great  writer.  ofauthors- 
Only  a  graduate  of  the  university  of  the  world  has 
the  learning  required  to  become  a  great  poet  or  a 
great  novelist,  and  a  diploma  from  any  other  insti 
tution  makes  no  man  free  of  the  company  of  great 

authors. 

"  My  only  books 

Were  woman's  looks, 
And  folly  's  all  they  Ve  taught  me," 

could  be  said  sincerely  only  by  an  incorrigible  fool. 
It  is  in  volumes  of  this  kind  —  in  the  keen  and  con 
stant  observation  of  life,  that  is  to  say  —  that  even 
genius  must  find  its  materials,  if  it  is  to  touch  men 
and  move  them.  Among  the  most  successful  of 
American  authors,  whether  we  measure  success  by 
immediate  popularity  or  by  substantial  achieve- 


44  AMERICAN   WRITERS   OF   TO-DAY. 

ment,  are  striking  instances  of  what,  in  other  call 
ings,  we  are  accustomed  to  call  "self-made  men," 
—  men  who  have  risen  to  eminence  without  that 
training  in  the  schools  generally  regarded  as  indis 
pensable.  There  is  probably  no  more  impressive 
case  of  this  sort  than  that  of  Mr.  Howells. 


I. 

IT  is  a  great  thing  to  be  well-born,  and  an  almost 
greater  thing  to  be  well-bred;  happy  indeed  the 
A  weii  bom  man  w^°  *s  both.  The  Howells  family, 
lad  before  coming  to  this  country,  were 

Welsh  Quakers,  but  they  show  as  far  back  as  their 
history  can  be  traced  an  exceptional  independence 
of  sectarian  bias.  The  grandfather  of  the  novelist 
was  a  Methodist,  his  father  was  a  Swedenborgian, 
and  Mr.  Howells  himself  would  probably  be  not 
unjustly  described  as  a  Unitarian.  The  inheri 
tance  of  such  a  tendency  to  hold  lightly  denomi 
national  bonds,  while  it  would  be  very  unfortunate 
for  a  theologian,  might  be  regarded  as  a  happy 
circumstance  in  the  case  of  one  whose  calling  pecu 
liarly  demands  the  widest  and  most  sympathetic 
knowledge  of  men.  There  is  a  place  in  the  world 
for  ardent  sectaries,  — nobody  who  is  not  a  bigot  to 
liberality  will  question  that;  but  their  place  is  not 
in  the  ranks  of  dramatists  or  novelists. 

The  father  of  our  novelist  was  a  man  of  more  than 
ordinary  culture.  A  printer  by  trade  and  an  editor 


WILLIAM  DEAN  HO  WELLS.  45 

in  a  small  way,  he  had  made  quite  a  large  collec 
tion  of  books  for  his  time  and  for  a  back-country 
town.  Of  the  mother  we  can  learn  little,  but  that 
little  indicates  a  woman  of  gentle  manners  and 
refined  tastes.  Into  such  a  family  a  boy  was  born 
March  I,  1837,  the  parents  then  living  at  Martin's 
Ferry,  Ohio.  Young  Howells  had  the  usual  educa 
tion  that  a  boy  gets  in  a  country  town ;  beyond  the 
"three  R's"  it  could  not  reasonably  be  expected 
to  go.  What  sort  of  a  boy  he  was,  and  what  he 
learned  that  books  could  not  teach,  he  ABoy,s 
has  himself  told  us  in  "A  Boy's  Town." 
This  book  is  the  best  autobiography  of  a  boy  in 
existence,  far  less  introspective  and  therefore  more 
truthful  than  Daudet's  "  Le  Petit  Chose,"  in  which 
the  French  novelist  has  told  the  story  of  his  boy 
hood  pathetically  enough,  but  with  too  much  im 
agination  to  make  it  satisfactory  as  biography, 
however  one  may  admire  it  as  literature. 

What  such  a  boy  would  learn  at  school  would 
necessarily  be  the  least  part  of  his  education.  He 
took  to  reading  as  naturally  as  a  duck  takes  to 
water.  His  father's  library  contained  a  larger 
proportion  of  poetry  than  is  common  in  such  col 
lections,  and  this  fact  probably  had  much  to  do 
with  shaping  the  first  literary  ideas  of  the  lad. 
Like  Pope,  he  "  lisped  in  numbers  for  the  Juvenile 
numbers  came;"  or,  to  state  the  fact  more  vers 
prosaically,  while  still  a  small  boy  he  began  to 
make  verses,  and  set  them  in  type  himself,  in  his 


46  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

father's  printing-office.  It  does  not  appear  whether 
the  verses  found  their  way  into  the  newspaper  then 
published  by  his  father,  but  very  likely  some  of 
them  did. 

The  family  fortunes  were  not  uniformly  good, 
country  journalism  being  an  even  more  uncertain 
venture  then  than  now.  In  1851  there  came  a 
crash.  The  family  took  the  matter  with  charac 
teristic  philosophy.  Mr.  Howells  says  that  when 
the  failure  was  assured,  "we  all  went  down  to  the 
river  and  went  in  swimming."  Young  Howells 
then  went  to  work,  contributing  his  earnings  —  four 
dollars  a  week,  as  compositor  on  the  Ohio  "  State 
Journal" — to  the  family  purse.  Things  mended 
not  long  after,  and  at  nineteen  he  was  graduated 
from  the  composing  room  into  journalism.  Begin 
ning  as  an  employe  of  the  Cincinnati  "Gazette," 
A  -oumaiist  at  at  twenty-two  he  became  news  editor  of 
nineteen.  the  Columbus  "State  Journal,"  and  at 
about  the  same  time  began  his  purely  literary 
career.  He  did  not  immediately  find  his  real 
vocation,  for  a  time  imagining  himself  called  to 
be  a  poet.  His  first  publication  was  "Poems  of 
Two  Friends"  (Columbus,  1860),  which  he  issued 
jointly  with  John  J.  Piatt,  whose  acquaintance  had 
somehow  been  made  during  the  brief  journalistic 
experience  just  described.  At  about  this  time  the 
young  poet  became  a  contributor  to  the  "Atlantic 
Monthly,"  then  recently  founded  and  on  the  look 
out  for  new  writers  of  promise. 


WILLIAM  DEAN  HO  WELLS.  47 

In  the  same  year  that  saw  the  appearance  of  this 
volume  of  poems  Mr.  Howells  wrote  a  campaign 
biography  of  Abraham  Lincoln  that  did  The  biographel 
admirable  service.  Except  in  the  West,  ofLincoln- 
Lincoln  was,  at  the  time  of  his  nomination,  com 
paratively  unknown  to  his  own  party;  and  when 
the  news  was  flashed  along  the  wires  the  genera] 
exclamation  was,  "Who  is  Abe  Lincoln?"  This 
book  did  much  to  make  the  candidate  known,  and 
it  furnished  newspaper  editors  and  campaign  orators 
plenty  of  material  for  the  answering  of  all  questions 
regarding  the  party's  candidate.  For  this  service 
the  biographer  received  one  hundred  and  sixty 
dollars,  and  later  on,  in  accordance  with  time- 
honored  custom,  there  was  added  an  appointment 
from  President  Lincoln  as  consul  at  Venice. 

The  use  made  of  both  rewards  was  characteristic. 
The  money  was  expended  upon  a  trip  to  Boston 
via  Montreal, — a  route  which  Mr.  Howells  turned 
to  excellent  account  afterwards  in  "Their  Wedding 
Journey."  This  was  a  red-letter  date  in  the  bud 
ding  author's  history,  for  on  this  visit  he  made 
the  personal  acquaintance  of  Lowell,  Holmes,  and 
others  whom  he  had  previously  known  only  by 
reputation  or  through  correspondence.  One  will 
not  go  far  astray  in  regarding  this  visit  as  having 
determined  the  course  of  his  life  thereafter.  The 
consulship  at  Venice  was  likewise  made  Con?ulat 
to  contribute  to  the  broadening  of  knowl-  Vemce> 
edge  and  sympathies,  — every  forward  step  that  the 


48  AMERICAN   WRITERS   OF  TO-DAY. 

young  author  gained  becoming  the  vantage-ground 
for  a  still  further  advance.  If  the  spoils  system  in 
our  diplomatic  service  produced  more  frequently 
such  results  as  these,  one  could  look  upon  it  with 
a  greater  degree  of  toleration.  But  the  pocket 
boroughs  were  not  saved  in  England  by  the  fact 
that  Macaulay  and  Burke  owed  to  them  their  first 
seats  in  Parliament;  and  the  appointment  of  Haw 
thorne  and  Howells  to  discharge  political  debts 
cannot  save  the  spoils  system. 

The  years  from  1861  to  1865  were  spent  in 
acquiring  the  Italian  language,  in  study  of  the 
national  literature,  and  in  travel.  No  complaint 
was  ever  made  that  the  consul  failed  to  perform 
his  duty  in  Venice  satisfactorily,  but  he  certainly 
found  time  to  extend  his  education  vastly  in  these 
Venetian  Life  four  years.  His  "  Venetian  Life  "  (Lon- 
don  and  New  York,  1866)  and  "Italian 


Journeys"  (Boston,  1867)  were  the  first-fruits  of 
this  residence  abroad.  Two  more  delightful  and 
instructive  books  about  Italy  have  never  been  pub 
lished,  and  they  still  deservedly  find  a  host  of 
appreciative  readers.  We  may  not  improbably 
ascribe  to  this  foreign  residence  and  travel  a  cer 
tain  cosmopolitan  spirit,  a  breadth  of  "atmosphere," 
as  painters  say,  that  is  characteristic  of  the  work 
of  later  years. 

On  returning  to  this  country  in  1866,  Mr. 
Howells  was  for  a  time  a  writer  for  the  "New 
York  Tribune"  and  the  "Nation,"  but  was  soon 


WILLIAM  DEAN  HO  WELLS.  49 

offered  the  post  of  assistant  editor  of  the  "Atlan 
tic  Monthly"  by  James  T.  Fields,  and  in  1872  be 
came  editor  of  that  magazine.  In  this  po-  T 

Editor  of  the 

sition  he  served  with  complete  acceptance  Atlantic- 
and  success,  until  his  resignation  in  1881  in  order 
to  devote  himself  more  completely  to  original  liter 
ary  work.  In  many  respects  he  made  a  model 
magazine  editor.  He  was  painstaking,  enterpris 
ing,  courteous,  and  firm. 

He  did  not  forget,  in  his  sympathy  with  the 
writer  struggling  for  a  hearing,  that  the  patrons 
of  the  magazine  had  a  prior  right  to  the  best  liter 
ature  to  be  got,  whether  in  prose  or  verse.  With 
out  breaking  with  past  tradition,  he  introduced 
fresh  features  and  infused  new  life  and  spirit  into 
every  department  of  the  magazine.  In  spite  of 
the  contempt  he  may  even  then  have  felt  and  has 
since  expressed  for  critics  and  criticism,  he  made 
the  critical  work  of  "The  Atlantic"  a  force  in 
current  literature.  He  established  the  "  Contrib 
utors'  Club," — a  sort  of  free  parliament  for  the 
expression  of  opinion  on  a  wide  range  of  topics 
by  some  of  the  cleverest  of  American  writers.  In 
a  word,  if  he  had  not  preferred  to  be  the  repre 
sentative  American  novelist  of  his  day,  he  might 
have  become  its  representative  editor.  He  has  all 
the  gifts  of  a  great  journalist,  except,  perhaps,  lack 
of  conscientious  scruple.  With  long  and  patient 
effort — who  knows?  —  he  might  have  acquired 
even  that. 

4 


50  AMERICAN   WRITERS   OF  TO-DAY. 


II. 

WITH  the  publication  of  "Their  Wedding  Jour 
ney"  in  1871,  Mr.  Howells  entered  on  his  real 
Their  wed-  career.  Hitherto  he  had  been  experi- 
ding  journey.  mentingj  now  ^Q  had  found  his  vocation. 

One  cannot  treat  his  poems  as  anything  better 
than  the  exercises  of  a  clever  lad,  or  the  amuse 
ments  of  a  versatile  man  of  letters.  His  critical 
work  is  a  by-product,  a  collection  of  chips  from 
the  workshop  of  a  busy  writer.  From  this  time 
on  we  have  to  do  with  a  man  who  is  first  of  all  and 
last  of  all  a  novelist.  Novel  after  novel  has  made 
its  appearance,  with  the  unfailing  regularity  of  the 
seasons.  Yet  this  fecundity  has  not  been  reached 
at  the  expense  of  quality.  None  of  his  books  bears 
marks  of  undue  haste,  of  careless  workmanship,  of 
failing  powers.  On  the  contrary,  if  each  book 
published  has  not  surpassed  all  its  predecessors, 
we  can  trace  in  the  author  from  year  to  year  an 
increase  of  power,  a  completer  mastery  of  the  re 
sources  of  his  art,  a  larger  view,  an  ampler  spirit. 
One  has  heard  and  read  that  of  late  years  a  change 
has  come  over  Mr.  Howells,  —that  the  romance  of 
his  earlier  books  has  faded  away  into  a  hard,  dry, 
Hisallegedlater  real  ism,  that  he  has  lost  the  joyousness 
pessimism.  Qf  yOu^  an(j  has  become  pessimistic,  not 
to  say  cynical.  This  seems  an  opinion  founded  on  a 
partial  and  superficial  knowledge  of  Mr.  Howells's 


WILLIAM  DEAN  HO  WELLS.  51 

writings.  There  is  nothing  more  romantic  or 
idyllic  in  the  Marches  when  we  first  meet  them 
on  "  Their  Wedding  Journey "  than  when  after  a 
score  of  years  we  renew  their  acquaintance  in  "A 
Hazard  of  New  Fortunes."  Such  change  as  is  to 
be  noted  in  his  later  books  is  due  rather  to  the 
influence  of  the  much -admired  Tolsto'f  than  to  any 
other  cause.  "  The  World  of  Chance "  is  quite 
strongly  tinged  with  the  Russian  novelist's  views 
of  society  and  religion.  It  cannot  be  said,  how 
ever,  that  much  of  the  light  of  hope  is  thrown  on 
the  regeneration  of  society  by  a  book  in  which  one 
would-be  regenerator  becomes  a  maniac,  and  com 
mits  suicide  after  unsuccessfully  attempting  murder, 
while  another  dies  without  having  accomplished  the 
great  purpose  of  his  life,  the  publication  of  a  book 
that  was  to  be  the  gospel  of  a  new  era. 

III. 

EVEN  a  casual  reader  of  these  books  is  soon  aware 
that  their  author  is  no  mere  story-teller,  content 
just  to  amuse  the  public,  regarding  their  smiling 
approval  as  the  be-all  and  end-all  of  his  obligation. 
He  is  a  thoroughly  instructed  artist,  who  works  not 
at  haphazard,  who  succeeds  not  by  lucky  strokes  of 
genius,  but  proceeds  according  to  a  well-defined 
theory  of  his  art,  —  a  theory  that  we  must  take  pains 
to  understand  if  we  would  judge  him  fairly  and 
sympathetically.  We  may  dissent  from  the  theory, 


52  AMERICAN  WRITERS   OF  TO-DAY. 

we  may  find  the  practice  faulty;  what  we  may  not 
do  is  to  judge  him  in  the  empirical  and  a  priori 
fashion  so  common  in  current  criticism. 

Both  in  theory  and  in  practice,  Mr.  Howells  is 
a  realist.  He  believes,  that  is  to  say,  that  the 
Howeiis  a  chief  end  of  the  novel  is  not  to  tell  a 
realist.  story,  but  to  represent  life.  A  story 

there  must  be,  of  course,  but  not  necessarily  a 
plot;  the  history  of  the  spiritual  development  of  a 
single  personage,  for  example,  is  a  "story."  The 
novel  must  tell  a  story  in  the  sense  that  a  picture 
tells  a  story,  and  in  no  other  sense;  in  other 
words,  whatever  represents  a  bit  of  life  necessarily 
tells  a  story.  This  fundamental  canon  requires 
no  debate,  for  it  is  not  merely  truth  but  truism, 
or  nearly  so.  Like  Captain  Cuttle's  observation, 
the  bearings  of  it  lie  in  its  application,  and  it 
is  when  Mr.  Howells  begins  to  apply  his  canon, 
whether  in  his  own  practice  or  in  criticism  of 
others,  that  doubts  begin  to  suggest  themselves. 

Art  is  necessarily  selective,  for  the  sufficient 
reason  that  no  man  can  represent  the  whole  of 
life.  It  is  only  a  scrap  of  landscape  that  the 
painter  can  put  on  his  largest  canvas,  and  only  a 
glimpse  of  some  tiny  segment  of  the  social  cosmos 
(or  shall  we  say  chaos  ?)  can  be  afforded  the  readers 
of  a  three-volume  novel.  This  being  the  case,  the 
question  immediately  arises  whether  some  principle 
or  principles  should  not  govern  the  selection  of 
what  is  to  be  represented.  There  are  professors 


WILLIAM  DEAN  HO  WELLS.  53 

of  realism   in  fiction  who  teach   that    all   possible 
objects  are  equally  worthy  of  representation.     They 
do  not  really  believe  this,  because  even  they  prac 
tise  selection,  and  therefore,  of  course,  re-  Truerealism 
jection;  but,  as  children  say,  they  "make  andfalse- 
believe "    believe    it    when    they    are    challenged. 
Nay,  they  virtually  affirm  that  the  more  worthless 
and  commonplace,  the  more  hideous  and  repulsive 
and  vile  an    object    is,    the   more  worthy   it    is  of 
representation. 

Now  this  application  of  the  canon  of  realism  one 
is  certainly  entitled  to  dispute  without  thereby 
incurring  suspicion  of  questioning  the  canon  itself. 
All  art  has  taken  it  for  granted,  from  its  rudest 
beginnings  until  now,  that  some  objects  in  nature, 
some  experiences  in  life,  are  better  adapted  for 
representation  than  others.  The  choice  of  object 
has  been  dictated,  in  the  main,  by  its  capacity  to 
please.  Without  disputing  the  fact  that  there  is 
a  place  in  art  for  the  grotesque,  for  the  painful, 
even,  its  chief  function  is  to  please  and  ennoble. 
The  great  artists  have  always  appealed  to  the  moral 
as  well  as  to  the  aesthetic  faculties.  One  is  not 
convinced,  therefore,  by  any  assertions  or  examples 
of  realists  in  fiction,  that  the  trivial  and  the  vile 
furnish  proper  subjects  for  the  artist.  To  the 
healthy  mind  they  give  no  pleasure;  they  inspire 
only  ennui  or  disgust. 

Mr.  Howells  cannot  be  too  promptly  acquitted  of 
any  suspicion  of  choosing  the  vile  as  subject  of  his 


54  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

art.  His  one  villain,  Bradley  Hubbard,  is  so  ill 
done,  in  comparison  with  his  other  work,  as  to 
suggest  lack  of  knowledge  of  this  type.  The  bad 
woman  he  has  never  attempted  to  draw,  though 
American  soc'ety  is  not  quite  guiltless  of  Becky 
Sharps.  But  the  trivial,  the  commonplace,  he  has 
exhibited  in  season  and  out,  especially  in  his  repre- 
The  gospel  of  sentations  of  American  women.  That, 

trivial  common-  ,  . 

place.  however,  introduces  a  subject  so  large  as 

to  demand  discussion  by  itself.  Passing  it  by  for 
the  present,  it  is  pertinent  to  inquire,  Can  it  be 
that  Mr.  Howells  gives  us  in  his  books  a  fair 
representation  of  life  as  he  has  known  it?  Has 
his  whole  experience  been  of  this  stale,  flat,  un 
profitable  sort  ?  Has  he  never  known  anybody  who 
had  a  soul  above  buttons?  The  thing  seems  diffi 
cult  to  believe.  It  may  be  that  the  people  we  meet 
in  his  novels  are  those  with  whom  he  is  most 
familiar,  those  that  he  feels  himself  most  com 
petent  to  depict,  but  that  they  exhaust  his  experi 
ence  of  life  and  his  knowledge  of  the  world  one 
cannot  so  easily  accept. 

Let  us  be  just,  however.  To  Mr.  Howells  we 
must  award  the  praise  of  having  done  well  what  he 
set  out  to  do.  Given  the  propriety  of  the  choice,  we 
must  grant  that  he  has  made  a  faithful  and  lifelike 
picture  of  the  thing  chosen.  It  is  with  the  choice 
itself  that  many  of  his  readers  quarrel ;  or,  perhaps 
one  should  say,  they  quarrel  with  his  persistent 
and  exclusive  choice  of  one  type  of  character  and 


WILLIAM  DEAN  HO  WELLS.  55 

one  sort  of  experience  for  representation  in  his 
fiction.  Whether  he  has  not  known  higher  types 
of  character  among  us,  or  has  lacked  courage  to 
attempt  their  portraiture  —  in  either  case  he  has 
chosen  badly  for  his  readers,  though  possibly  pru 
dently  for  himself. 

IV. 

No  examination  of  the  works  of  Mr.  Howells 
would  have  any  claim  to  comprehensiveness  that 
failed  to  take  account  of  his  farce-come-  Thefarce. 
dies.  There  is  quite  a  series  of  these,  comedies- 
beginning  with  "The  Sleeping-Car"  and  ending 
with  the  "Unexpected  Guests."  No  American 
author  has  given  us  more  admirable  fooling  than 
this,  at  once  clever  and  refined.  The  humor  is 
free  from  that  element  of  exaggeration  supposed  to 
be  peculiarly  characteristic  of  American  humor. 
The  humor  of  Mr.  Howells  is  as  well-bred  and 
studiously  proper  as  the  elegant  Bostonians  who 
are  his  dramatis  personce  ;  it  is  humor  in  a  swallow 
tail  coat  and  white-lawn  tie,  so  to  say.  Those 
dramatis  persona  deserve  a  separate  word  :  they  are 
but  four,  —  the  real  characters,  that  is  to  say,  though 
make-weights  may  occasionally  be  introduced,  —  but 
they  have  been  ingeniously  utilized,  year  after  year, 
in  new  situations,  until  they  seem  to  us  people 
whom  we  have  known  all  our  lives.  The  same 
idea  has  been  almost  simultaneously  worked  out 


56  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

by  several  clever  writers  of  short  stories ; l  but  none 
of  his  rivals  has  succeeded  like  Mr.  Howells  in 
making  his  people  real  flesh-and-blood  persons. 

These  comedies  bring  us  again  face  to  face  with 
the  chief  grievance  one  has  against  Mr.  Howells, 
and  it  is  time  to  have  it  fairly  out  with  him,  —  that 
The  caricature  is,  his  curiously  and  indeed  exasperat- 

of  American  . 

womanhood,  ingly  inadequate  portraiture  of  American 
womanhood.  This  is  more  or  less  a  fault  of  all 
his  writing,  but  it  becomes  most  conspicuous  in 
these  farces.  Are  Mrs.  Roberts  and  Mrs.  Campbell 
fair  types  of  American  womanhood?  Is  the  Ameri 
can  woman  who  is  both  well-bred  and  well-read 
usually  only  one  remove  from  idiocy?  Is  she 
habitually  so  silly  and  flighty  as  to  suggest  that 
her  proper  place  is  in  some  institution  for  the 
feeble-minded?  One  does  not  dispute  that  the 
originals  of  Mesdames  Roberts  and  Campbell  exist 
—  unfortunately,  one  has  met  them ;  one  only 
pities  the  man  who  has  been  so  unspeakably  unfor 
tunate  as  to  meet  nobody  else.  The  plea  that  they 
exist  is  not  a  valid  defence  to  our  accusation,  — 
Nana  and  Madame  Bovary  and  Sappho  exist  also, 
without  doubt;  the  charge  being  that  there  has 
been  a  failure  in  literary  perspective,  an  artistic 
blunder  of  which  even  a  demonstration  of  realistic 

1  Notably  by  Mr.  Thomas  A.  Janvier  in  his  "  Color  Studies  " 
of  artist  life  in  New  York,  and  by  Mr.  Richard  Harding  Davis 
in  his  portraiture  of  Van  Bibber,  the  New  York  young  man 
about  town. 


WILLIAM  DEAN  HO  WELLS.  57 

truth  furnishes  no  justification.     Art  is  something 
different  from  and  higher  than  photography. 

Mr.  Howells  is  inclined  to  wave  aside  such 
criticism  with  a  rather  jaunty  air,  pronouncing  it 
"  extremely  comical  "  as  he  does  so.  "  I  The  author 

.  1    ,,  .  .  ..          "confesses 

once  said,  so  he  is  reported  as  remark-  and  avoids." 
ing,  "to  a  lady  who  asked  me,  'Why  don't  you 
give  us  a  grand,  noble,  perfect  woman  ? '  that  I  was 
waiting  for  the  Almighty  to  begin.  I  think  that 
women,  as  a  rule,  are  better  and  nobler  than  men, 
but  they  are  not  perfect.  I  am  extremely  opposed 
to  what  are  called  ideal  characters.  I  think  their 
portrayal  is  mischievous;  it  is  altogether  offensive 
to  me  as  an  artist,  and,  as  far  as  the  morality  goes 
I  believe  that  when  an  artist  tries  to  create  an  ideal 
he  mixes  some  truth  up  with  a  vast  deal  of  senti 
mentality,  and  produces  something  that  is  extremely 
noxious  as  well  as  nauseous.  I  think  that  no  man 
can  consistently  portray  a  probable  type  of  human 
character  without  being  useful  to  his  readers. 
When  he  endeavors  to  create  something  higher 
than  that,  he  plays  the  fool  himself  and  tempts  his 
readers  to  folly.  He  tempts  young  men  and 
women  to  try  to  form  themselves  upon  models 
that  would  be  detestable  in  life,  if  they  were  ever 
found  there." 

Mr.  Howells  makes  the  form  of  plea  known  to 
lawyers  as  "confession  and  avoidance."  He  admits 
that  the  women  of  his  fictions  are  imperfect,  but 
throws  the  responsibility  on  the  Almighty,  —  he 


58  AMERICAN   WRITERS   OF   TO-DAY. 

has  given  us  faithful  portraits  of  the  kind  of  women 
he  has  found  in  the  world.  The  validity  of  this  de 
fence  can  be  admitted  only  by  those  who  find  it  cred- 
The  plea  not  ikle.  His  women,  taken  as  a  class,  com- 
vaiid.  prise  more  varieties  of  the  species  fool 

than  most  of  us  have  known  by  actual  experience; 
but  that  he  has  never  in  his  life,  as  son,  husband, 
father,  friend,  come  in  contact  with  any  other  sort 
of  woman  than  this  mixture  of  superficial  accom 
plishments  and  frivolous  mind,  —  this,  as  A.  Ward 
feelingly  remarked,  is  "2  mutch."  The  ideal 
heroine  of  fiction  is  not  a  creature  as 

"  beautiful  as  sweet, 

And  young  as  beautiful,  and  soft  as  young, 
And  gay  as  soft,  and  innocent  as  gay," 

and  silly  as  all  the  rest  put  together,  because  this 
is  not  the  best  type  of  woman  in  real  life. 

The  plea  of  Mr.  Howells  must,  therefore,  be 
overruled ;  he  cannot  be  absolved  from  the  guilt  of 
defective  art  by  the  plea  that  the  art  is  perfect,  and 
that  the  defect  is  in  womankind.  The  plea  contains 
as  little  of  truth  as  of  gallantry.  And  by  saying 
this,  one  intends  no  impeachment  of  the  novelist's 
sincerity.  Mr.  Howells  takes  himself  and  his  art 
with  great  seriousness,  and  honestly  believes  in 
both  with  all  his  might.  He  is  merely  the  victim 
of  misplaced  confidence  in  this  instance.  It  were 
treason  to  American  women  to  accept  his  lame 
and  impotent  conclusion  that  they  are  fit  only  to 


WILLIAM  DEAiV  HO  WELLS.  59 

chronicle  small  beer.      It  were  to  believe  the  future 
of  our  country  hopeless. 

"  For  she  that  out  of  Lethe  scales  with  man 
The  shining  steps  of  Nature,  shares  with  man 
His  nights,  his  days,  moves  with  him  to  one  goal, 
Stays  all  the  fair  young  planet  in  her  hands,  — 
If  she  be  small,  slight-natured,  miserable, 
How  shall  men  grow  ?  " 

Justice  requires  the  admission  that  Mr.  Howells 
has  shown  signs  of  late  of  strengthening  this  weak 
place  in  his  stories.  It  is  always  the  unexpected 
that  happens,  and  in  his  "World  of  TheWorld 
Chance"  he  has  at  last  given  us  a  ofchance- 
heroine  who  is  neither  idiotic  nor  feeble-minded. 
One  says  "heroine,"  since  that  is  the  conventional 
term  for  the  chief  female  character  of  a  novel.  In 
the  strictest  sense  of  the  word,  Peace  Hughes  is 
not  a  heroine  at  all;  she  is  something  far  better 
than  that,  a  genuine  woman.  Her  station  is  not 
exalted,  her  like  may  be  found  by  anybody  who 
takes  a  walk  on  Broadway,  — her  like  in  all  outward 
characteristics,  one  means.  Her  father  is  a  social 
istic  "crank,"  and  she  is  a  stenographer  and  type 
writer  in  a  publishers'  office.  Mr.  Howells  does 
not  represent  her  as  saying  or  doing  a  single  heroic 
thing, — anything  that  surpasses  the  experience  of 
a  thousand  young  women  in  New  York;  yet  he  has 
drawn  her  with  so  much  sympathy,  so  much  fidelity, 
as  to  make  her  the  strongest  and  best  woman  in  all 
his  fictions. 


60  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

Mr.  Howells  deserves  congratulations  on  his  dis 
covery  of  this  type  of  woman.  If  he  will  continue 
to  live  in  New  York  and  to  use  his  eyes  he  will 
A  woman  at  discover  other  types  not  less  womanly, 
last.  Qne  ^oes  not  demand  impossibilities  of 

him  in  protesting  against  the  inanities  of  his  pre 
vious  books.  Latter-day  readers  have  no  great 
liking  for  the  angelic  or  the  heroic  type  of  woman 
that  novelists  used  to  give  us.  It  is  doubtless  our 
misfortune,  but  most  of  us  never  yet  have  happened 
to  meet  either  of  those  types.  The  women  we  have 
known  were  neither  angels  nor  heroines,  but  just 
women.  The  greater  part  of  them  have  not  been 
fools.  The  realistic  method  of  Mr.  Howells  shows 
to  best  advantage  when,  as  in  this  book,  he  applies 
it  to  the  delineation  of  a  real  woman,  in  no  way 
exceptional,  unless  it  be  in  a  certain  delicacy  and 
nobleness  of  nature.  For  one  cannot  think  so  well 
of  the  world  as  to  believe  that  women  like  Peace 
Hughes  are  common. 

V. 

IF  that  country  is  most  fortunate  that  has  no 
annals,  may  we  not  count  happiest  that  author  of 
whose  life  there  is  little  to  record  save  the  titles  of 
his  books  ?  This  is  practically  the  case  with  Mr. 
Howells  since  1881;  but  of  these  records  there 
is  a  long  series.  No  author  has  afforded  us  an 
example  of  systematic  and  industrious  labor  at  his 
art  more  highly  to  be  commended.  It  is  something 


WILLIAM  DEAN  HO  WELLS.  6 1 

to  have  set  before  our  young  people  who  cherish 
literary  aspirations,  as  on  the  whole  the  most  pros 
perous  of  American  writers,  a  man  who  claims  no 
peculiar  exemptions  from  moral  obligation  on  the 
score  of  genius,  who  is  as  regular  at  his  desk  as 
any  blacksmith  at  his  anvil,  who  is  blameless  in 
every  private  and  public  relation.  Mr.  Howells  has 
found  time,  by  virtue  of  this  system  and  diligence, 
not  only  to  produce  a  novel  every  year,  but  to  do 
a  considerable  quantity  of  other  literary  Howells,sby_ 
work.  Among  these  by-products,  as  they  Products- 
have  already  been  called,  may  be  specified  the  edit 
ing,  with  critical  introductions,  of  a  series  of  vol 
umes  called  "  Choice  Biographies  "  (8  vols.  Boston, 
1877-8);  the  volume  of  critical  essays  on  "Modern 
Italian  Poets"  (1887);  and  his  papers  contributed 
to  the  Editor's  Study  of  "Harper's  Magazine," 
the  best  of  which  have  been  collected  in  "Criticism 
and  Fiction"  (New  York,  1891). 

It  is  not  a  little  funny  to  read  in  these  criticisms 
denunciations  of  critics,  so  fierce  in  matter,  in 
phrases  so  urbane.  One  suspects  that  His  uarrel 
Mr.  Howells  would  like  to  be  rude  to  the  with  the  critics 
critics  if  he  only  knew  how,  he  labors  so  hard  to 
say  something  cutting,  something  that  will  pierce 
the  notoriously  thick  hide  of  this  terrible  wild 
beast.  For  your  critic  is  essentially  a  devourer  of 
authors,  and  can  no  more  be  credited  with  good  in 
tentions  than  a  tiger.  It  is  doing  the  critic  unde 
served  honor,  this  comparing  him  to  a  tiger,  for  Mr. 


62  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 

Howells  will  allow  him  to  be  nothing  higher  in  the 
scale  of  being  than  a  parasite.  "The  critic  exists," 
he  tells  us,  "because  the  author  first  existed.  If 
books  failed  to  appear,  the  critic  must  disappear 
like  the  poor  aphis  or  the  lowly  caterpillar  in 
the  absence  of  vegetation."  This  sort  of  thing, 
diluted  through  many  pages,  does  less  to  convince 
the  public  than  to  convict  the  writer.  Is  it  the 
galled  jade  that  winces?  Has  the  critic's  lash 
been  so  vigorously  wielded  as  to  cause  Mr.  Howells 
pain  commensurate  with  this  retaliation?  Be  this 
as  it  may,  he  must  be  held  to  have  a  very  defective 
conception  of  the  critic's  function.  One  is  aston 
ished,  if  he  rate  this  function  so  low,  that  he  is 
willing  to  enact  the  parasite  himself.  Shall  one 
who  proclaims  from  the  housetops  that  the  clown's 
part  is  unworthy  of  a  man,  presently  don  the  motley 
and  himself  play  the  fool  ? 

The  critic,  rightly  considered,  is  not  a  parasite 
but  a  middleman.  His  function  in  literature  is  as 
The  critic's  valid  and  as  useful  as  the  merchant's  in 

function  legiti-  ~  •     i   ,       -i  i  -, 

mate.  commerce.      Short-sighted  men  have  de 

nounced  the  merchant  as  a  parasite  on  the  body 
politic,  their  ground  being  that  he  is  not  a  producer 
and  gains  his  living  at  the  expense  of  those  who 
add  to  the  world's  wealth;  his  suppression  has 
therefore  been  demanded  as  an  act  of  justice  to  the 
world's  real  workers.  But  the  more  philosophical 
economist  has  shown  that  the  merchant  does  pro 
duce  value,  by  taking  goods  from  the  Dlace  where 


WILLIAM  DEAN  HO  WELLS.  63 

they  are  not  wanted  to  the  place  where  consumers 
demand  them.  The  critic  who  understands  his 
business  and  pursues  it  honestly  is  a  literary  pro 
ducer,  no  less  than  the  author;  he  finds  a  market, 
that  is,  appreciative  readers,  for  works  that  other 
wise  might  never  be  heard  of,  and  thus  adds  some 
thing  of  substantial  value  to  literature.  One  need 
not  maintain  that  the  critic's  function  is  coordinate 
with  that  of  the  author,  that  the  critic  produces 
what  is  as  valuable  as  the  masterpiece  of  poet  or 
philosopher,  to  make  good  his  right  of  existence. 
Who  shall  say  that  Addison,  in  his  series  of  papers 
on  Milton,  did  not  produce  something  of  real,  yes, 
of  high  value  to  letters?  If  it  were  not  for  the 
makers  of  paper  and  ink  the  author  himself  would 
soon  vanish,  "like  the  poor  aphis  or  the  lowly 
caterpillar;"  but  shall  the  worthy  mechanics  and 
tradesmen  who  supply  these  materials  of  the  scrib 
bling  art  be  privileged  to  insinuate  that  authors  are 
no  better  than  parasites?  Go  to,  they  shall  be 
roundly  rebuked  if  they  are  guilty  of  such  pre 
sumption,  and  that  by  Mr.  Howells  himself. 

It  is  a  vain  fight  on  which  Mr.  Howells  has 
entered,  even  were  he  thrice-armed  by  having  his 
quarrel  strictly  just.  The  sons  of  Zeruiah  A  contest  vain 
be  too  hard  for  him.  The  critics  grow  atbest- 
apace.  Their  name  is  legion,  their  spirit  Ishmael- 
itish,  their  activity  incessant,  their  prolificacy  por 
tentous.  It  is  easy  to  flout  them,  as  Mr.  Howells 
has  done,  —  as  Disraeli  did  when,  with  mordant 


64  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

sarcasm,  he  defined  a  critic  as  an  author  who  has 
failed;  or  as  Byron,  when,  smarting  under  the  lash 
of  Jeffrey  he  wrote,  with  wit  vitriolic:  — 

"  A  man  must  serve  his  time  to  every  trade 
Save  censure  —  critics  all  are  ready  made. 
Take  hackney'd  jokes  from  Miller,  got  by  rote, 
With  just  enough  of  learning  to  misquote ; 
A  mind  well  skill'd  to  find  or  forge  a  fault, 
A  turn  for  punning,  call  it  attic  salt ;  .  .  . 
Fear  not  to  lie,  't  will  seem  a  lucky  hit; 
Shrink  not  from  blasphemy,  't  will  pass  for  wit ; 
Care  not  for  feeling  —  pass  your  proper  jest, 
And  stand  a  critic,  hated  yet  caressed." 

Obviously  Jeffrey  might  have  retorted  that  Byron 
showed  his  own  confidence  in  the  recipe  by  follow 
ing  it  exactly,  but  the  critic  is  notoriously  easy  to 
be  cowed  into  meekness  when  the  baited  author 
turns  upon  him,  and  so  Jeffrey  missed  this  chance. 
On  the  whole,  have  not  the  flock  of  harried  authors 
had  their  fair  revenge  on  the  critics?  Most  of  the 
latter  would  never  have  been  known  to  posterity 
had  they  not  been  "damned  to  everlasting  fame" 
in  some  immortal  work,  as  the  fly  is  sometimes 
preserved  in  the  precious  drop  of  amber. 

Still  let  us  maintain  that  the  critic  is  a  harm 
less,  and  even  a  useful,  animal.  Like  a  certain 
Not  so  black  °ther  great  personage  he  is  not  so  black 
as  painted  as  fae  js  generally  painted.  The  author 
is  often  unjust  to  him,  and  sometimes  —  let  us  be 
honest  now  —  he  is  even  more  unjust  to  himself. 
Criticism  is  not  the  last  refuge  of  incompetence. 


WILLIAM  DEAN  HO  WELLS.  65 

It  is  not  fault-finding,  though  both  critic  and 
author  are  but  too  prone  to  forget  this  essential 
truth.  A  critic,  as  the  etymology  of  the  word 
implies,  is  a  judge, — one  who  weighs  evidence, 
who  impartially  examines,  discerns,  separates,  dis 
tinguishes.  It  is  no  less  the  office  of  the  judge  to 
acquit  the  innocent  than  to  convict  the  guilty.  It 
is  a  small  part,  and  the  most  disagreeable  part,  of 
criticism  to  point  out  defects;  the  more  agreeable 
as  well  as  the  more  important  work  is  to  recognize 
beauties  and  to  help  others  see  them.  The  critic 
has  already  been  compared  to  the  merchant,  but 
an  apter  analogy  is  perhaps  suggested  by  the 
cicerone.  It  is  his  business  to  point  out  to  others 
the  places  of  interest,  the  strokes  of  genius,  the 
felicitous  achievements  in  literary  art,  in  the  work 
under  review,  and  thus  assist  others  to  form  a  just 
and  intelligent  judgment  as  to  its  total  merits. 
Nor  does  it  avail  for  the  author  sneeringly  to  chal 
lenge  the  critic  to  prove  his  competence  by  produc 
ing  superior  work.  The  critic  may  reply,  in  the 
saying  of  Didacus  Stella,  that  a  dwarf  standing  on 
the  shoulders  of  a  giant  may  see  farther  than  the 
giant  himself. 

Anybody  can  find  fault,  —  anybody,  at  least,  who 
has  a  small  soul,  a  feeble  wit,  and  a  bitter  tongue. 
To  criticise,  in  the  true  sense,  is  not  Critidsm  not 
within  the  powers  of  everybody.  It  de-  fault-finding- 
mands  a  large  soul,  a  trained  mind,  a  catholic  taste, 
a  teachable  disposition, — a  sweet  reasonableness, 

5 


66  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 

to  use  the  phrase  of  Matthew  Arnold.  The  just 
judge  must  sometimes  pronounce  sentence  against  an 
offender;  even  Mr.  Howells  has  shown  us  that,  when 
he  condemns  so  gently  the  rabid  critic.  Bad  work 
must  be  pronounced  what  it  is,  for  the  critic,  like 
every  other  honest  man,  must  strive  to  keep  "alight 
that  little  spark  of  celestial  fire  —  conscience." 
But  the  critic  who  recognizes  the  true  dignity  and 
responsibility  of  his  office  will  be  at  least  as  hearty 
in  recognition  of  good  work  as  in  condemnation  of 
bad;  his  praises  will  be  bestowed  quite  as  freely  as 
his  blame,  and  with  greater  evident  pleasure,  for  he 
will  always  rejoice  when  his  conscience  absolves 
him  from  the  duty  of  censure,  and  warrants  him  in 
inviting  a  warm  but  discriminating  admiration  for 
the  work  under  review.  He  will,  however,  shun, 
as  he  would  shun  the  plague,  indiscriminate  praise 
or  blame.  He  will  regard  gush  as  only  one  degree 
less  culpable  than  slander;  for  to  bear  false  witness 
in  favor  of  one's  neighbor  is  only  one  step  above 
bearing  false  witness  against  him.  In  short,  he 
will  try  to  speak  the  truth,  as  any  honest  man 
should,  neither  less  nor  more.  It  will,  of  course, 
be  the  truth  as  he  sees  it  that  he  will  speak, 
colored  more  or  less,  unavoidably,  by  his  peculiar 
training,  prepossessions,  and  acquired  beliefs;  and 

"  A  fool  must  now  and  then  be  right  by  chance." 

But  better  than  speak  the  truth  as  he  sees  it,  can  no 
man  do  —  except  recognize  the  limits  of  his  intelli- 


WILLIAM  DEAN  HO  WELLS.  6? 

gence,  the  fallibility  of  his  judgments  and  the  equal 
presumptive  honesty  of  those  who  differ  from  him. 
It  is  in  this  last  particular  that  many  critics,  other 
wise  well  equipped,  grievously  fail. 

Enough,  with  over-measure,  of  this.  Let  Mr. 
Howells,  if  he  will,  renounce  the  critic  and  all  his 
works,  and  in  the  next  breath  do  the  same  works 
and  greater  things  also.  We  do  not  demand  of  him 
that  consistency  which  is  the  virtue  of  feeble  minds, 
but  are  rather  grateful  to  find  in  him  a  single  re 
deeming  vice.  Even  though  he  occasionally  aggra 
vate  us  by  his  wrong-headedness,  as  some  of  us 
must  consider  it,  Mr.  Howells  is  easily  the  first 
living  American  novelist.  We  cannot  deny  him 
the  praise  of  being  faithful  to  his  own  Faithful  to his 
ideal,  of  practising  diligently  his  own  ideal- 
canons  of  art.  He  himself  tells  us,  with  great 
earnestness  and  frequent  iteration,  that  he  utterly 
contemns  and  rejects  the  notion  that  the  novel 
should  aim  merely  to  entertain.  What  we  must 
say  to  any  serious  fiction  is  this,  "Is  it  true?  true 
to  the  motives,  the  impulses,  the  principles  that 
shape  the  life  of  actual  men  and  women?"  If  the 
answer  be  in  the  affirmative,  such  a  work  cannot  be 
bad,  for  this  truth  "necessarily  includes  the  highest 
morality  and  the  highest  artistry."  To  realize  this 
ideal,  Mr.  Howells  has  earnestly  striven.  If  he  has 
failed  in  some  instances  to  reach  it,  his  failure  is 
not  due  to  lack  of  conscientious  industry  and  high 


68  AMERICAN   WRITERS   OF  TO-DAY. 

resolve.  And  certainly,  within  his  limitations,  of 
all  our  American  writers  none  has  come  nearer  to 
doing  in  fiction  what  the  greatest  master  of  the 
drama  has  declared  to  be  the  purpose  of  the  stage, 
"to  hold  as  'twere  the  mirror  up  to  nature;  to  show 
virtue  her  own  feature,  scorn  her  own  image,  and 
the  very  age  and  body  of  the  time  his  form  and 
pressure." 


IV. 

HENRY  JAMES. 

"  TSOCRATES  adviseth  Demonicus,"  says  quaint 
-*-  old  Burton,  "  when  he  came  to  a  strange  city,  to 
worship  by  all  means  the  gods  of  the  place."  If  you 
go  to  Boston,  you  must  be  prepared  to  do  homage  to 
Henry  James.  One  who  is  not  ready  to  make  this 
author  his  idol  may  yet  freely  admit  that  he  is  not  une 
quantit^  negligeable.  We  may  love  him,  or  we  may 
detest  him ;  ignore  him,  we  cannot. 


ALMOST  two  decades  ago  Bayard  Taylor  wrote, 
apropos  of  some  of  Mr.  James's  earlier  work :  "  Few 
men  have  been  so  brilliantly  equipped  for  literary 
performance.  Carefully  trained  taste,  large  acquire 
ments  of  knowledge,  experience  of  lands  and  races, 
and  association  with  the  best  minds,  have  combined 
to  supply  him  with  all  the  purely  intellectual  requisites 
which  an  author  could  desire."  This  is  Brilliantly 
praise  that  is  no  more  than  scrupulously  eciuiPPed- 
just  to  one  who  was  born,  if  ever  an  American  novelist 
was,  under  a  lucky  star.  His  father,  distinguished 
during  his  lifetime  as  Henry  James,  senior,  was  a 
philosopher  and  theological  writer  of  considerable 


70  AMERICAN    WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

note,  —  the  inheritor  of  an  ample  fortune  from  his 
father,  a  merchant  of  Albany,  N.  Y. ;  a  graduate  of 
Union  College  in  1840,  and  afterward  a  student  at 
Princeton;  by  turns  orthodox  Presbyterian,  Sande- 
manian,  Swedenborgian,  Spiritualist;  a  man  who 
boxed  the  compass  of  theological  belief  retaining  still 
the  personal  regard  of  all  who  knew  him.  Henry 
James,  junior,  was  born  in  New  York  City,  in  1843. 
His  education  was  altogether  out  of  the  common; 
little  of  it  was  according  to  ordinary  methods,  and  all 
was  conducted  under  his  father's  personal  supervision ; 
begun  in  America,  after  1855  it  was  carried  on  and 
completed  abroad,  at  Geneva,  Paris,  Boulogne-sur- 
Mer,  and  Bonn.  What  little  he  learned  in  the  Har 
vard  Law  School,  which  he  entered  in  1862,  does  not 
require  this  statement  to  be  modified,  one  supposes, 
for  the  law  was  with  him  never  a  serious  purpose. 

Into  the  nature  of  this  education  there  is  no  need 
to  inquire,  since  its  fruits  are  so  evident  in  Mr.  James's 
writings.  It  may  have  been  less  or  more  than  an 
equivalent  of  the  scholastic  lore  of  an  ordinary  uni 
versity  course;  it  certainly  included  an  intimate 
Knowied  e  of  acquaintance  with  several  modern  lan- 
Europe.  guages  and  a  comprehensive  knowledge  of 

their  literatures.  It  also  comprised  such  a  minute 
familiarity  with  foreign  society,  with  European  cus 
toms  and  ways  of  thinking,  as  probably  no  other 
American  novelist  has  had.  Mr.  Howells  has  certainly 
made  good  use  of  his  opportunities  abroad,  but  he 
has  not  that  minute  knowledge  of  foreigners  that  is 


HENR  Y  JAMES.  7  I 


shown  by  the  author  of  "  The  American."  Mr.  Craw 
ford  may  know  Italy  better  than  Mr.  James,  but  he 
does  not  know  France  with  anything  like  the  latter's 
thoroughness,  nor  England  either,  for  the  matter  of 
that.  Indeed,  it  is  not  saying  too  much  to  assert  that 
long  residence  abroad  has  made  Mr.  James  more 
European  than  American.  Since  1869  he  has  spent 
most  of  his  time  between  England  and  France.  This 
has  given  him  peculiar  qualifications  for  originating  a 
new  type  of  fiction.  Fortunately  for  his  fame,  he  has 
not  attempted  to  represent  a  society  of  which  he  knows 
comparatively  little.  In  the  few  cases  in  which  he  has 
chosen  an  American  scene  for  his  story  he  has  selected 
his  locality  with  discretion,  and  has  relied  Lack  of  famii- 

iarity  with 

for  his  chief  characters  on  foreigners  and  America, 
travelled  Americans.  The  American  abroad  he  has 
studied  with  great  care  and  attention  to  detail ;  the 
American  at  home  he  may  almost  be  said  not  to  know. 
Whether  one  likes  the  flavor  of  his  books  or  not,  one 
cannot  fail  to  distinguish  it  from  that  of  any  other 
American  novelist. 

II. 

THE  new  species  of  fiction  originated  by  Mr.  James 
has  been  named  the  International  Novel.     We  may 
take    "The    American"    (Boston,    1877),  Theintema- 
"  Daisy  Miller"  (New  York,  1878),  "The  tionalNovel- 
Portrait  of  a  Lady  "  (Boston,  1881),  and  "  The  Princess 
Casamassima  "  (London  and  New  York,  1886),  as  the 
best  examples  of  his  work  in  its  various  periods.  In  his 


72  AMERICAN   WRITERS   OF   TO-DAY. 

earlier  books  he  was  a  preacher  of  social  righteousness. 
His  theme  was  the  contrast  between  American  and 
European  life  and  manners,  greatly  to  the  disadvan 
tage  of  American  manners  and  ideals,  in  many  cases. 
The  American,  in  the  book  of  that  title,  is  a  man  in 
middle  life  who  has  "  made  his  everlasting  fortune," 
and  has  gone  to  Europe  to  enjoy  it,  with  some  vague 
idea  of  marriage  as  a  part  of  the  enjoyment.  He  is  a 
very  good  specimen  of  the  "  self-made  "  American, 
not  too  much  inclined  to  worship  his  maker,  by  no 
means  vulgar  in  his  tastes,  rather  intellectual  and 
artistic  in  a  crude,  untaught  way,  not  loud  or  aggressive 
in  manner,  appreciating  himself  at  his  full  value,  yet 
modest  withal,  clean  in  morals,  and  unsophisticated  in 
Parisian  viciousness,  —  in  short,  a  gentle- 

The  American. 

man  at  the  core,  though  lacking  some  of 
the  graces  and  polish  demanded  by  "  society."  This 
Mr.  Newman,  while  he  does  not  quite  believe  money  to 
be  omnipotent,  firmly  believes  that  it  will  accomplish 
most  things,  and  has  no  doubt  that  it  will  buy  his  way 
into  the  good  graces  of  any  foreigner.  He  falls  in  love 
with  a  young  French  widow,  of  noble  family,  —  a  family 
anxious  for  reasons  of  their  own  that  she  shall  marry  a 
second  time,  and  marry  a  rich  man.  He  becomes  en 
gaged  to  her,  with  her  family's  consent,  but  the  noble 
marquis  and  his  mother  (who  rule  the  family)  are 
so  overwhelmed  with  chagrin  when  they  fully  realize 
what  a  social  gulf  separates  the  American  from  them 
that  they  break  off  the  match.  The  widow  obeys  her 
mother,  though  heart-broken,  and  retires  to  a  convent. 


HENRY  JAMES.  73 


Newman  obtains  proofs  that  the  marquis  and  his 
mother  are  base  and  even  criminal,  threatens  to  expose 
them,  but  finally  relents  and  burns  the  documents ; 
and  in  this  tangled  state  of  things  the  story  reaches 
its  conclusion  with  nothing  concluded.  In  Daisy 
Miller  we  have  the  female  counterpart  of  Newman,  — 
the  young  woman  who  is  as  good  as  gold,  so  sure  of 
herself  that  she  never  once  dreams  anybody 
can  doubt  her;  who,  nevertheless,  does  all 
manner  of  risky  things,  that  in  any  girl  of  European 
training  and  traditions  would  indicate  total  depravity, 
but  are  in  her  only  a  combination  of  ignorance  and 
wilfulness. 

One  cannot  deny  that  these  two  books  are  realistic 
in  every  detail.  There  are  Newmans  and  Daisy  Millers 
in  Europe,  —  the  type  was  more  common,  perhaps,  a 
decade  ago  than  now,  —  there  are  Americans  more 
vulgar  still,  who  do  not  stop  with  innocently  doing 
compromising  and  outre  things,  but  are  shamelessly 
vicious.  No  doubt  the  American  girl  abroad  deserved 
the  sharp  rebuke  conveyed  in  "  Daisy  Miller;  "  her 
male  counterpart  was  let  off  very  easily,  on  the  whole, 
in  "  The  American."  If  one  quarrels  with  Mr.  James 
it  must  be  on  the  ground  of  what  he  has 
not  said,  rather  than  of  what  he  has  said. 
He  has  told  the  truth,  —  that  is  to  say,  he  has  told  a 
part  of  the  truth.  This  is  at  once  his  justification  and 
the  chief  ground  of  complaint  against  him;  for  in 
fiction,  as  everywhere  else,  one  feels  — 

"  That  a  lie     hich  is  half  a  truth  is  ever  the  blackest  *>f  lies." 


74  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 

Why,  one  asks  again  and  again,  has  not  Mr.  James 
told  the  other  half  of  the  truth?  Why  has  he  never 
depicted  the  American  gentlewoman  and  gentleman 
abroad,  cultivated,  polished,  courteous,  refined?  That 
is  a  type  which  exists  as  truly  as  the  other,  and  is 
quite  as  worthy  of  representation ;  nor  is  it  beyond  the 
powers  of  Mr.  James  to  represent  it  adequately.  He 
knows  and  doubtless  appreciates  the  American  cos 
mopolite,  of  both  sexes,  and  his  art  would  be  truer  if 
it  had  been  more  comprehensive.  The  angry  criticism 
roused  by  "  Daisy  Miller"  was  not,  therefore,  wholly 
that  are  whole  unjust,  but  it  was  right  rather  as  the  ex 
pression  of  healthy  instincts  than  as  a  result 
of  intelligent  comprehension.  People  vaguely  felt 
that  the  book  was  unjust  to  America,  and  that  the 
author  was  unpatriotic.  In  this  they  were  wrong;  but 
complaint  may  be  made  with  at  least  a  show  of  justice 
against  Mr.  James  for  letting  the  book  stand  all  these 
years  without  supplement. 

In  some  of  his  books,  it  might  be  replied  in  behalf 
of  Mr.  James,  he  has  represented  the  polished  Amer 
ican.  But  this  is  only  partly  true ;  he  has,  indeed, 
given  us  admirable  portraits  of  the  Europeanized 
American,  notably  in  "  The  Europeans  "  and  "  The 
Portrait  of  a  Lady,"  but  hardly  of  the  genuine  Amer 
ican.  We  certainly  have  among  us  men  and  women 
who,  without  having  lost  the  racy  quality  of  Western 
character,  have  acquired  the  culture  and  manner  that 
mark  well-bred  people  the  world  over.  An  English 
gentleman,  a  French  gentleman,  has  a  distinct  flavor 


HENR  Y  JAMES.  J 5 


of  his  own,  and  is  in  many  ways  a  more  interesting 
personage  than  a  cosmopolite  whose  nationality  cannot 
be  inferred  from  his  speech  or  notions.  An  American 
gentleman  should  have  the  same  attractiveness  for  the 
observer,  and  should  furnish  equally  good  material 
for  the  novelist's  art.  This  is  a  type,  how- 

r  i_-    1_  -11  u      •  • 

ever,  for  which  one  will  search  in  vain 
through  the  novels  of  Mr.  James.  One  finds  it  diffi 
cult  to  understand  why  it  should  have  been  so 
persistently  avoided  by  a  writer  so  well  fitted  to  depict 
it.  Mr.  James's  art  has  suffered  by  his  persistent 
preaching  of  the  gospel  according  to  Europe.  One  is 
willing  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  any  number  of 
Europeans,  and  even  of  Europeanized  Americans,  — 
in  novels,  —  provided  there  is  not  constantly  obtruded 
upon  him  the  moral :  "  You  are  in  all  things  less  than 
the  least  of  these,  —  except,  perhaps,  in  native  good 
ness,  which  doesn't  count." 

Possibly  Mr.  James  has  himself  concluded  that  he 
has  said  quite  enough  on  this  subject,  for  in  some  of 
his  more  recent  books,  notably  in  "The  Princess 
Casamassima,"  he  has  ignored  his  countrymen  alto 
gether.  The  result  is  that,  having  no  lesson  to 
inculcate,  no  warning  to  deliver,  his  story  g.  nsofim 
becomes  charming.  Mr.  James  in  general  provement. 
scouts  the  idea  that  a  story  need  have  a  plot.  There 
is,  he  would  say,  no  orderly  and  logical  sequence  of 
events  in  every-day  life,  and  why  should  there  be  such 
sequence  in  fiction?  He  is  equally  contemptuous, 
in  a  general  way,  of  that  sentiment  which  demands  of 


76  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

a  novelist  heroic  actions  on  the  part  of  his  characters. 
He  has  in  effect,  if  not  in  set  terms,  declared  it  to  be 
imperfect  art  when  an  author  is  forced  to  disentangle 
the  thread  of  his  tale  by  recourse  to  murder  or  suicide 
or  any  other  catastrophe.  But  not  even  Mr.  James  can 
practise  this  theory  of  the  novelist's  art  with  entire 
consistency.  In  the  book  last  mentioned  he  panders 
to  the  unlawful  desires  of  the  ordinary  novel-reader 
by  providing  something  that  may  almost  be  called  a 
plot ;  he  introduces  incidents  that  in  any  other  writer 
we  should  unhesitatingly  call  romantic;  and  he  con 
cludes  his  tale  with  a  suicide  and  the  most  approved 
blood-curdling  concomitants.  Surely  there  is  reason 
to  hope  that  in  the  course  of  a  few  more  years  he 
may  in  practice,  if  not  in  word,  subscribe  to  Mr. 
Crawford's  declaration  of  faith,  and  refuse  to  be  called 
either  realist  or  romancer. 


III. 


THE  art  of  fiction  is  not  confined  to  the  writing 
of  novels;  it  includes  also  the  Short  Story.  This  is 
The  short  a  comparatively  new  species  of  literature, 
Story'  by  no  means  to  be  confounded  with  the 

Tale,  of  which  so  excellent  specimens  may  be  found 
in  the  "Decameron"  and  "  Heptameron ''  by  those 
who  can  stomach  those  books.  There  were  heroes 
before  Agamemnon,  and  there  have  been  spinners 
of  yarns  before  those  of  the  present  day.  But  the 


HENR  Y  JAMES.  77 


short  story  of  the  period  is  not  a  mere  tale,  begin 
ning  nowhere  in  particular,  and  going  on  until  the 
narrator's  breath  or  the  hearer's  patience  fail;  it 
has  as  definite  rules  of  composition  as  a  novel  or  an 
epic.  It  has  a  distinct  purpose,  and  that  purpose 
is  accomplished  by  a  well-regulated  advance,  every 
step  of  which  is  calculated  with  the  nicest  art. 
There  is  no  master  of  this  species  of  composi 
tion,  on  the  whole,  comparable  to  Mr.  James,  at 
least  among  American  writers;  and  in  this  branch 
of  the  art  of  fiction  American  writers  surpass  all 
others  save  only  the  French.  The  short  story 
has  always  been  a  striking  feature  of  our  litera 
ture.  Nothing  better  in  this  kind  of  writing  has 
been  produced  than  Irving's  "Legend  Americans mas- 
of  Sleepy  Hollow,"  Poe's  "Gold  Bug,"  *" 
and  the  "Twice  Told  Tales"  of  Hawthorne.  In 
England  the  short  story  has  languished.  The 
"Christmas  Stories"  of  Dickens  are  perhaps  the 
best  specimens  that  "the  tight  little  isle"  can 
boast,  though  some  of  the  work  of  Charles  Reade 
and  Wilkie  Collins  is  not  far  inferior.  But  the 
best  of  these  stories  lack  the  artistic  perfection  our 
American  writers  have  achieved.  The  great  English 
novelists  either  wrote  short  stories  but  seldom,  like 
Thackeray,  or  not  at  all,  like  Scott.  The  British 
intellect  seems  to  find  difficulty  in  turning  itself 
around  in  less  than  the  orthodox  three-volume 
space. 

It  was  the  good  fortune  of  Mr.   James  to  begin 


78  AMERICAN   WRITERS   OF   TO-DAY. 

his  career  at  the  very  time  when  American  periodi- 
Authors  must  ca^  literature  was  entering  on  its  most 
rapid  stage  of  development.  A  market 
was  thus  provided  for  short  stories  such  as  had 
never  been  known  before.  Now,  authors  no  more 
than  other  producers  will  keep  on  making  unsalable 
goods,  and  the  periodical  press  is  a  necessary  condi 
tion  of  prolific  production  of  short  stories,  because 
it  affords  a  market  for  them  on  a  large  scale,  — a 
scale  hitherto  unexampled  in  the  history  of  litera 
ture.  Even  an  author  must  live.  Or,  if  the  stern 
critic  reply,  a  la  Talleyrand,  "  Pardon  me,  I  do  not 
see  the  necessity,"  he  will  at  least  accept  the  state 
ment  with  this  amendment,  —  an  author  must  live  if 
he  is  to  go  on  producing.  And  even  if  he  is  other 
wise  provided  with  the  means  of  living  than  by 
payment  for  his  writing,  — as  one  conjectures  may 
have  been  the  case  with  Mr.  James,  —  still,  he  will 
not,  unless  he  is  one  of  a  thousand,  go  on  writing 
unless  he  has  some  encouragement  from  the  public 
to  do  so.  He  is  doubly  fortunate  if  he  receives 
sufficient  recognition  to  encourage  him  to  proceed, 
yet  is  freed  from  the  temptation  to  do  hasty  work 
for  the  sake  of  turning  out  "pot-boilers." 

Mr.  James  appears  to  have  been  thus  independent 
of  the  pecuniary  rewards  of  his  pen  at  the  outset  of 
Requirements  his  career.  He  did  not  need  to  make  of 

of  the  Short 

story.  his  stories  mere  "pot-boilers."     He  early 

discovered  that   this    species  of   writing    demands 
capacity  and  training  of  a  peculiar  order,  as  any  one 


HENR  Y  JAMES.  79 


else  is  likely  to  discover  who  sits  down  and  tries  to 
write  a  story  by  the  light  of  nature.  Power  of  in 
vention,  fertility  of  imagination,  and  facility  of  style 
are  indispensables,  but  the  first  requisites  are  sense 
of  proportion,  and  lucidity  of  vision.  In  the  short 
story  there  must  be  no  fumbling  with  a  purpose,  no 
hazy  observation,  no  indecisive  movement;  all  must 
be  sure,  well-devised,  clean-cut. 

There  are  no  stories  of  this  sort  more  workman 
like  than  those  of  Mr.  James;  witness  the  volume 
entitled  "A  Passionate  Pilgrim,"  composed  wholly 
of  these  tales.  Witness  other  volumes  of  the  same 
character,  and  numerous  stories  in  the  magazines 
not  gathered  into  volumes.  "Workmanlike"  one 
calls  these  stories;  a  little  too  workmanlike,  per 
haps,  they  are  at  times.  The  author  is  so  delighted 
with  the  perfection  of  skill  he  has  attained  that  he 
now  and  then  invites  us,  as  it  were,  to  TOO  clever  by 
admire  his  cleverness.  His  air  seems  to  half- 
say,  "  See  how  thoroughly  I  understand  my  trade, 
and  how  neat  a  job  I  have  made  of  this."  If 
Mr.  James  had  taken  one  short  step  further  in 
advance,  and  learned  the  last  secret  of  true  art,  to 
conceal  art,  his  short  stories  would  have  arrived  at 
perfection. 

IV. 

WHATEVER  he  may  come  to  be,  Mr.  James  is  at 
present  the  acknowledged  coryphaeus  of  the  Ameri- 


80  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 

can  school  of  realists.  A  disciple  of  Balzac,  in  his 
books  we  leave  "the  realms  of  gold"  in  which  the 
romancer  travels,  and  come  down  to  the  plane  of 
solid  commonplace,  — 

"  Where  the  Rudyards  cease  from  Kipling, 
And  the  Haggards  ride  no  more." 

But  he  is  also  a  disciple  of  Sainte-Beuve,  and  is 
able  to  give  a  well-reasoned  exposition  of  the  faith 
that  is  in  him  as  a  novelist,  as  well  as  to  criticise 
His  critical  tne  ideals  and  appreciate  the  work  of 
essays.  others.  In  a  word,  he  is  a  thoroughly 

equipped  critic,  whose  refined  taste,  broad  spirit, 
generous  recognition  of  all  that  is  good,  and  skill 
in  the  great  art  of  putting  things,  make  his  essays 
more  instructive  and  entertaining  to  many  readers 
than  his  fiction.  Anybody  who  has  a  particle  of 
literary  curiosity,  or  any  appreciation  of  the  graces 
of  style,  may  be  safely  challenged  to  take  up  his 
"Partial  Portraits,"  or  his  "French  Poets  and 
Novelists,"  or  his  volume  on  Hawthorne  in  the 
"  English  Men  of  Letters  "  series,  and  lay  the  book 
down  before  he  has  read  substantially  all  of  it.  It 
is  one  of  the  cases  where  if  you  say  A  you  must  say 
B,  and  so  on  down  the  alphabet;  to  read  one  page 
of  the  essay  on  Alfred  de  Musset,  for  example, 
means  that  the  whole  book  must  be  finished  out  of 
hand.  Not  that  this  essay  is  so  pre-eminently  good, 
—  the  same  result  precisely  would  follow  if  the 
reader  opened  the  book  at  random;  he  would  be 


HENR  Y  JAMES.  8 1 


fascinated,  and  could  not  stop  except  by  an  effort 
of  will  that  he  would  not  care  to  make. 

These  critical  writings  throw  an  illuminating 
side-light  upon  the  novels  of  Mr.  James,  inasmuch 
as  they  contain  the  theory  on  which  his  practice  of 
the  art  of  fiction  is  founded.  The  raison  d? etre  of 
the  novel,  he  tells  us,  is  that  it  may  represent  life, 
not  a  part  of  life  merely,  but  all  life.  Other  than 
this  it  has  no  justification,  no  place  in  literature. 
Obviously,  if  this  principle  be  fully  admitted, 
it  follows  that  the  novelist  cannot  be  Anmuminat_ 
restricted  in  his  choice  of  subjects;  he  ing side-light 
must  be  permitted  to  take  his  own  wherever  he 
finds  it.  He  must,  indeed,  select,  but  art  is  a 
selection  that  is  inclusive;  therefore  the  artist 
must  not  deliberately  exclude  any  part  of  life 
from  his  works.  This  may  be  an  ideal  principle 
for  a  work  of  vast  design,  like  Balzac's  "  Comedie 
Humaine,"  but  it  is  a  hard  saying  for  the  guidance 
of  a  novelist  whose  scheme  is  modest  and  whose 
ambition  is  something  less  than  world-embracing. 

But  the  principle  seems  to  have  an  even  worse 
conclusion  enfolded  in  it,  nor  does  Mr.  James  lack 
the  courage  to  draw  this  conclusion.  This  is,  that 
the  art  of  fiction  has  nothing  to  do  with  morality. 
If  it  is  true  to  its  aim,  if  it  faithfully  tries  to  repre 
sent  life,  a  novel  is  not  to  be  called  either  moral  or 
immoral.  There  are  bad  novels  and  good  novels, 
it  is  true,  just  as  there  are  good  pictures  and  bad, 
but  in  either  case  the  adjective  connotes  artistic,  not 

G 


82  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

moral,  qualities.  A  novel  is  good  when  it  is  well 
written,  it  is  bad  if  it  is  ill  written,  and  Mr.  James 
NO  morals  in  avows  that  he  can  see  no  other  distinc 
tion.  Now  one  hopes  that  the  American 
public  is  ready  to  admit  the  truth  of  this  theory 
of  art  neither  in  the  case  of  pictures  nor  in  the  case 
of  novels.  The  sound,  healthy  sense  of  the  people, 
uninstructed  in  art  criticism,  revolts  from  the  state 
ment  that  pictures  designed  to  corrupt  the  morals 
of  youth,  pictures  that  accomplish  such  corruption, 
are  to  be  coldly  judged  as  works  of  art.  Novels 
that  have  no  better  purpose  than  to  drag  forth  to 
the  light  and  expose  to  the  gaze  of  the  innocent  and 
pure  a  mass  of  festering  and  putrid  moral  corrup 
tion,  cannot  be  admitted  to  be  good,  because  of  any 
technical  skill  shown  in  the  work.  The  eternal 
distinction  between  good  and  evil,  between  virtue 
and  vice,  cannot  be  obscured  by  dilettante  theories 
of  art. 

Mr.  James  is,  to  be  sure,  entitled  to  the  praise  of 
omitting  to  follow  up  his  own  theory  to  its  legiti 
mate  conclusions.  Some  saving  grace  of  common- 
sense,  some  unacknowledged  remnant  of  an  Anglo- 
Saxon  conscience,  has  held  him  back  from  the 
Lacks  the  cour-  commission  of  many  things  that  he  defends 
Tories.18  as  legitimate.  Doubtless  he  has  a  desire 
to  be  read,  and  that  not  as  most  people  read  Zola, 
—  in  a  corner,  and  with  a  shamefaced  air,  —  but 
openly  and  with  a  good  conscience.  No  man  of 
American  or  English  birth,  unless  his  mind  is 


HENRY  JAMES.  83 


hopelessly  besmirched,  can  read  a  certain  type  of 
French  novel  without  apologizing  to  himself  for 
the  insult,  and  trying  to  conceal  from  others  what 
he  has  done.  At  worst,  he  will  attempt  a  lame 
self-justification  on  the  ground  that  "so  much  is 
said  about  the  book,  you  know,  that  I  felt  I  must 
read  it  and  judge  for  myself."  If  he  brings  such 
books  into  his  house,  he  puts  them  on  some  shelf 
of  his  bookcase  where  they  are  hidden  by  other 
volumes,  carefully  locks  the  doors,  and  keeps  the 
key  in  his  pocket  night  and  day.  If  he  runs  the 
risk  of  moral  contagion  himself,  as  he  might  risk 
catching  small-pox  or  typhus,  he  has  no  idea  of 
exposing  his  wife  and  children  to  contamination. 
The  general  existence  of  such  a  feeling  is  the 
strongest  evidence  that  morals  cannot  really  be 
dissociated  from  art.  Even  in  France  the  young 
girl  is  most  strictly  and  sedulously  kept  from  see 
ing  pictures  or  reading  books  that  are  constantly 
before  her  elders.  Why  ?  Whoso  can,  let  him  give 
a  reason  consistent  with  the  theory  that  art  is 
unmoral. 


V. 


BEFORE  we  can  take  leave  of  Mr.  James  one  or 
two  other  matters  demand  at  least  a  passing  men 
tion.  He  not  only  ranks,  by  general  suffrage, 
among  the  first  of  living  novelists  and  critics,  but 
he  has  of  late  become  a  successful  playwright.  Some 


84  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

years  ago  he  dramatized  his  "Daisy  Miller,"  and 
it  had  a  fair  success.  Later  his  clever  stage  version 
His  dramatic  °f  "The  American"  won  him  greater 
work'  plaudits  still,  both  in  London  and  in 

the  United  States.  In  London  he  contended  with 
the  disadvantage  of  a  temporary  spasm  of  social 
feeling  against  all  persons  and  things  American, 
and  won  a  hearing  in  spite  of  this  prejudice,  which 
is  described  by  competent  observers  as  unusually 
bitter.  There  has  been  a  recent  interesting  an 
nouncement  that  Mr.  James  has  written  another  play, 
not  a  dramatization  of  a  previously  printed  novel, 
but  a  wholly  new  composition.  It  has  not  yet  been 
produced,  and  any  opinion  of  it  can  be  based  only 
on  imagination. 

It  is  remarkable  that  so  few  of  our  American 
writers  have  attempted  dramatic  composition.  To 
Few  American  one  wno  *s  not  restrained  by  conscientious 
dramatists.  scrupies  play-writing  offers  great  induce 
ments.  No  other  form  of  literary  work  is  so  well 
rewarded.  The  author  of  a  fifth-rate  play,  beneath 
notice  for  its  literary  quality,  provided  it  has  the 
"drawing"  power,  and  can  hold  its  place  on  the 
stage,  receives  in  the  way  of  royalty  as  many  hun 
dreds  a  week  as  the  author  of  a  first-rate  novel 
receives  thousands  in  a  year.  It  may  be  that 
American  writers  are  restrained  by  conscientious 
scruples;  that  while  they  do  not  see  any  more 
moral  evil  in  the  drama  than  in  the  novel,  they  do 
see  more  moral  evil  in  the  theatre  than  in  the 


HENR  Y  JA  MES.  8  5 


bookstore.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the  dramatic  suc 
cesses  of  American  authors  may  be  counted  on  the 
fingers  of  one  hand,  with  perhaps  a  finger  or  two  to 
spare.  This  does  not  necessarily  imply,  however, 
that  the  exceptional  success  of  Mr.  James  argues 
any  high  literary  value  in  his  plays,  for  the  literary 
merit  of  the  modern  comedy  is  surprisingly  small. 
Such  success  as  he  has  attained,  or  may  hereafter 
attain,  by  his  theatrical  ventures,  will  add  more  to 
his  bank  account  than  to  his  fame. 

A  word  must  also  be  said  of  the  style  of  Mr. 
James.  It  would  not,  perhaps,  be  called  a  brilliant 
style;  it  lacks  the  glitter  and  glow  of  A gentlemanly 
Macaulay  as  much  as  the  fulminant  cor-  style" 
uscations  of  Carlyle,  but  on  the  other  hand  it  is 
not  tamely  correct.  Without  absolute  lapse  into 
solecism,  a  sentence  will  often  have  a  familiar  col 
loquial  turn,  even  in  the  more  serious  writings,  that 
puts  the  reader  at  his  ease  and  promotes  an  excel 
lent  understanding  between  him  and  the  author.  It 
is  the  style  of  the  most  finished  urbanity,  of  the 
broadest  and  most  generous  culture;  marked  by 
limpid  clearness,  by  well-bred  ease,  by  flexibility 
and  variety,  not  at  all  by  mannerisms.  Matthew 
Arnold  at  his  best,  when  he  forgot  to  be  elaborately 
condescending  and  offensively  ironical,  may  be 
named  as  perhaps  the  closest  analogue  to  Mr. 
James  in  the  matter  of  style;  only  there  was  about 
the  Englishman,  even  when  at  his  best,  a  certain 
stiffness  of  manner  and  a  lack  of  nimbleness  of 


86  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 

wit,  that  one  does  not  find  in  the  American.  Mr. 
James's  study  of  French  literature  has  had  the 
happiest  effect  on  his  style.  "Whatever  is  not 
clear  is  not  French  "  is  a  maxim  generally  accepted 
in  France,  and  if  the  rule  might  be  reversed,  one 
would  be  compelled  to  pronounce  Mr.  James  more 
French  than  English. 


V. 

CHARLES  DUDLEY  WARNER. 

VIRGINIA,  once  known  as  the  mother  of  states- 
men,  has  of  late  years  yielded  her  function  to 
Ohio,  but  no  State  has  yet  wrested  from  Massachu 
setts  her  crown  as  the  mother  of  poets,  orators, 
and  romancers.  The  rocky  soil  and  stern  climate 
of  New  England,  though  surpassed  by  the  genial 
prairies  and  rich  bottom-lands  of  West  and  South 
in  producing  corn  and  cotton,  are  unequalled  for 
producing  men.  In  the  culture  of  the  Massachusetts, 
fruits  of  learning  and  the  flowers  of  rheto-  motherofmen: 
ric,  warmer  climes  and  soils  more  fertile  compete 
with  her  in  vain.  Plain  living  and  high  thinking  are 
still  found  in  Yankeedom  oftener  than  elsewhere, 
though  in  these  degenerate  days  it  must  be  con 
fessed  that  "  plain  living "  is  a  figure  of  speech, 
which,  translated  into  every-day  language,  means 
the  best  of  everything  and  plenty  of  it.  The  intel 
lectual  supremacy  of  New  England  is  not  wholly 
tradition.  Perhaps  the  sceptre  is  about  to  depart 
to  the  Middle  West,  —  so  we  are  often  informed,  with 
a  triumphant  assurance  that  almost,  though  not  quite, 
inspires  conviction,  —  but  not  until  a  new  generation 


88  AMERICAN  WRITERS   OF  TO-DAY. 

of  writers  gains  the  ear  and  heart  of  the  nation,  and 
those  to  whom  we  now  listen  needfully  have  gone 
over  to  the  silent  majority. 


CHARLES  DUDLEY  WARNER  was  born  in  Massa 
chusetts,  in  the  town  of  Plainfield,  in  the  year  1829. 
He  came  of  good  though  not  distinguished  Puritan 
stock.  His  father,  a  man  of  culture,  died  when  he 
was  but  five  years  old.  If  his  son  did  not  fall  heir 
Bred  among  to  a  large  estate,  he  did  inherit  a  love  of 
the  Puritans.  iiterature)  though  for  a  time  there  was 

little  to  encourage  its  growth.  Books  were  not 
numerous  in  those  days  in  a  New-England  family, 
and  what  few  there  were  seldom  went  beyond  com 
mentaries,  biographies  of  eminent  divines,  and  theo 
logical  treatises  of  the  straitest  Calvinistic  type.  We 
may  be  certain  that  young  Warner  made  the  best  use 
of  what  scant  opportunities  of  reading  fell  in  his  way. 
It  was  not  a  dreary  boyhood  that  he  spent,  if  we 
may  judge  from  his  "  Being  a  Boy."  In  this  book 
he  has  given  us  a  sort  of  autobiography,  less  com 
plete  than  that  of  Mr.  Howells,  and  not  quite  so 
vivid  a  reproduction  of  boy  life.  It  is,  no  doubt,  to 
many  a  more  enjoyable  book,  on  account  of  its 
pleasant  touches  of  humor;  and  it  faithfully  de 
scribes  some  phases  of  life  in  New-England  fifty 
years  ago  that  are  now  quite  non-existent. 


CHARLES  DUDLEY   WARNER.  89 

Young  Warner  must  have  been  a  good  student, 
and  he  apparently  enjoyed  rather  exceptional  ad 
vantages  for  a  New-England  boy,  for  he  was  gradu 
ated  from  Hamilton  College  in  1851,  first  His  college 
prizeman  in  English.  He  had  begun  to  career' 
write  for  "  Knickerbocker's"  and  "  Putnam's  "  maga 
zines  while  still  a  college  student,  and  seemed  thus 
predestined  to  a  literary  career,  but  for  some  years 
led  a  rather  roving  existence,  and  tried  his  hand  at 
several  occupations.  He  was  in  1853  a  member  of 
a  surveyor's  party  on  the  Missouri  frontier;  in  1854 
he  became  a  student  of  law  at  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania,  being  graduated  in  1856;  and  until 
1860  he  practised  law  at  Chicago.  In  that  year  he 
met  his  fate,  in  the  shape  of  an  engagement  as  assis 
tant  editor  of  the  Hartford  "  Press,"  becoming  editor- 
in-chief  the  following  year.  In  1867  this  paper  was 
consolidated  with  the  Hartford  "  Courant,"  of  which 
Mr.  Warner  became  co-editor  with  Joseph  R.  Hawley, 
—  a  position  which  he  has  held  ever  since.  Bec0mes  a 
Every  day  during  these  years  he  has  J°urnalist 
walked  to  his  office  —  save  the  times  of  infrequent 
absence  on  vacation  —  and  his  daily  editorial  task 
has  been  performed  with  faithfulness  and  ability. 
His  literary  work  has  been  done  in  his  spare  mo 
ments,  without  interference  with  his  regular  profes 
sional  duties ;  and  yet  he  has  accomplished  an 
amount  of  writing  that  would  make  a  very  credi 
table  record  for  most  professed  men  of  letters.  Be 
sides  his  contributions  to  the  magazines,  and  his 


90  AMERICAN    WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 

occasional  articles  that  have  never  been  collected, 
he  has  published  since  1870  a  good  dozen  and  a 
half  of  volumes,  all  of  which  are  established  favorites 
with  the  public  and  have  a  steady  sale.  His  connec 
tion  in  recent  years  with  "  Harper's  Magazine  "  is  too 
well  known  to  need  comment.  It  is  enough  to  say 
that  on  the  death  of  George  William  Curtis  the  one 
name  that  suggested  itself  to  every  reader  as  the 
name  of  him  who  was  alone  fitted  by  culture  and 
traditions  to  take  up  the  work  then  laid  down,  was 
Mr.  Warner's.  And  though  the  " Easy  Chair"  has 
been  abolished  in  name,  it  still  lives  in  spirit  under 
Mr.  Warner's  direction  as  one  of  the  choicest  feat 
ures  of  the  magazine. 

II. 

MR.  WARNER'S  connection  with  literature  grew 
out  of  his  work  as  a  journalist.  In  1868-69  he  took 
a  well-earned  holiday  abroad,  and  (as  the  manner  of 
editors  is)  wrote  to  his  journal  a  series  of  letters 
about  what  he  saw  and  heard.  He  had  seen  rather 
First  trip  more  of  his  own  country  than  is  usual  with 
abroad.  Americans  who  go  abroad  for  the  first 

time  ;  he  had  gained  a  very  considerable  personal 
acquaintance  with  men  and  affairs  ;  he  was  tolerably 
familiar  with  the  history  and  literature  of  Europe,  — 
in  short,  he  was  a  decidedly  intelligent,  wide-awake 
and  observant  traveller,  and  was  besides  blessed  with 
a  sense  of  humor.  These  letters  of  his  had  a  fresh- 


CHARLES  DUDLEY   WARNER.  91 

ness,  a  piquancy,  a  charm,  that  speedily  gained  for 
the  writer  a  local  literary  reputation,  which  did  not 
long  remain  merely  local.     As  the  letters  appeared, 
they  were  generally  copied  by  the  news-   s 
papers,  and  when,  several  years  later,  they 
were  republished  in  a  volume  with  the  appropriate 
title  of  "  Saunterings,"  a  wider  circle  of  readers  gave 
them  a  welcome  rather  unusual  in  the  case  of  such 
a  book. 

These  letters,  however,  while  very  successful,  did 
not  make  a  "  hit."  That  was  accomplished,  before 
the  appearance  of  "  Saunterings/'  by  a  series  of 
weekly  papers  on  gardening  published  one  summer 
in  the  Hartford  "  Courant."  The  author's  idea  seems 
to  have  been  suggested  to  him  by  Horace  Greeley's 
"  What  I  Know  about  Farming,"  and  he  apparently 
began  with  some  hazy  idea  of  writing  a  mild  bur 
lesque  on  this  book.  Like  the  creator  of  My  Summer  in 
the  immortal  Pickwick,  however,  he  had  aGardeiu 
not  progressed  far  before  his  serial  took  on  a  char 
acter  of  its  own,  and  totally  refused  to  be  finished  on 
the  lines  he  had  planned.  A  good  many  readers  of 
this  article  will  doubtless  recall  with  a  smile  the  first 
delightful  reading  of  "  My  Summer  in  a  Garden " 
(1870),  with  its  playful  wit,  its  profound  moral  "ob 
servations,"  its  wholesome  sentiment,  and  its  whim 
sical  side-glances  at  literature,  politics,  and  religion. 
Mr.  Warner's  reputation  as  a  humorist  was  estab 
lished  by  this  volume,  and  confirmed  by  his  "  Back 
log  Studies,"  which  followed  two  years  later.  He 


92  AMERICAN   WRITERS   OF   TO-DAY. 

well  deserved  his  reputation,  and  has  admirably  sus 
tained  it  since.  His  humor  is  of  the  delicate  and 
refined  type,  not  the  "  side-splitting  "  sort  that  it  is 
the  fashion  to  associate  with  the  adjective  American. 
Delicacy  of  ^  recalls  the  traditions  of  Addison  and 
humon  Steele,  and  Lamb,  and  Washington  Irving, 

—  not  he  of  the  Diedrich  Knickerbocker  period,  but 
the  Irving  of  the  "  Sketch  Book." 

Mr.  Warner's  reputation  as  a  humorist,  as  has  been 
said,  was  established  by  his  papers  on  gardening, — 
too  well  established,  shall  we  say?  No  doubt  his 
friends  considered  the  success  of  "  My  Summer  in 
a  Garden"  a  very  fortunate  circumstance,  and  so, 
from  some  points  of  view,  it  certainly  was.  One 
A  dangerous  might  plausibly  maintain,  from  another 
reputation.  pO'm^  of  view,  that  so  great  a  success  was 
on  the  whole  a  misfortune.  It  is  a  dangerous  thing 
for  an  author  to  establish  at  the  outset  a  reputation 
as  a  humorist.  To  be  known  as  a  joker  is  to  risk 
being  known  as  nothing  else.  The  American  public, 
always  ready  to  cry  encore  to  anybody  that  enter 
tains  it,  is  especially  quick  to  demand  the  reappear 
ance  of  one  who  has  made  it  laugh.  We  do  dearly 
love  to  be  tickled,  we  Americans.  When  the  joker 
of  established  reputation  faces  us,  we  are  on  a  broad 
grin  before  he  has  uttered  a  word,  and  we  resent  it 
as  a  personal  insult  if  he  fails  to  justify  our  expecta 
tions  by  setting  us  off  into  fits  of  laughter.  Rarely 
indeed  do  we  consent  to  take  a  man  seriously  who 
begins  by  making  us  laugh.  We  apply  to  him  the 


CHARLES  DUDLEY  WARNER.  93 

Roman  theory  of  the  indelibility  of  orders,  —  once  a 
humorist  always  a  humorist,  we  demand  shall  be  his 
rule  of  life.  Any  effort  on  a  humorous  writer's  part 
to  be  instructive,  to  plead  a  case  seriously,  to  take 
a  sober  view  of  the  world,  we  resent  as  in  some 
sort  a  breach  of  trust,  an  attempt  to  obtain  goods 
under  false  pretences.  He  has  chosen  his  character, 
and,  with  stern  virtue,  we  insist  that  he  shall  live 
up  to  it. 

There  is,  perhaps,  no  better  proof  of  Mr.  Warner's 
power  than  that  he  has  compelled  the  unwilling  world 
to  take  him  seriously,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  made 
his  first  hit  as  a  joker.  But  he  has  cer-  Not  a  mere 
tainly  not  done  this  without  strenuous  Joker' 
effort;  the  very  rarity  of  the  achievement  is  proof 
not  to  be  controverted  of  its  difficulty.  Dr.  Holmes 
tells  us,  in  his  pleasant  verses  on  "  The  Height  of  the 
Ridiculous,"  how  dangerous  to  others  it  is  for  a  witty 
writer  to  be  "  as  funny  as  he  can."  It  maybe  danger 
ous  to  others,  but  it  is  absolutely  fatal  to  himself,  un 
less  he  has  had  the  prudence  previously  to  establish 
a  reputation  for  sobriety.  Dr.  Holmes  took  the  pre 
caution  of  printing  certain  hard  and  dry  technical 
medical  works,  and  thereby  making  himself  highly 
respected  in  his  professional  circle,  before  he  in 
dulged  himself  in  the  luxury  of  making  the  world 
laugh.  John  G.  Saxe  neglected  this  precaution,  and 
it  was  a  grief  carried  with  him  to  the  grave  that  the 
public  would  never  look  on  him  as  anything  but  a 
writer  of  clever  parodies  and  side-splitting  jokes  in 


94  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 

verse.  In  his  later  years,  Henry  W.  Shaw  was  a 
proverbial  philosopher  of  extraordinary  merit;  his 
pithy  sentences  are  the  quintessence  of  practical 
wisdom,  often  startling  us  by  the  light  they  flash 
into  the  very  heart  of  things;  but  public  opinion 
compelled  him  to  misspell  his  shrewd  sayings,  as 
the  illiterate  "Josh  Billings,"  in  order  to  get  a 
A  horrible  hearing.  Mr.  Samuel  L.  Clemens  has  pub- 
exampie.  Hshed  certain  books  in  serious  literature, 
without  in  the  least  persuading  the  public  to  take 
him  seriously.  Many  read  "  The  Prince  and  the 
Pauper"  through  with  misgiving,  lest  a  huge  jest 
might  after  all  be  concealed  beneath  the  apparently 
sober  tale.  They  failed  to  enjoy  the  story,  because 
they  were  continually  and  nervously  looking  for 
some  hidden  snare.  It  is  only  when,  as  "  Mark 
Twain,"  he  writes  some  such  trash  as  "  The  Adven 
tures  of  Huckleberry  Finn  "  that  this  really  capable 
writer  can  make  sure  of  an  appreciative  hearing. 
But  Mr.  Warner  has  fairly  conquered  for  himself  a 
place  among  the  solid  writers  of  his  day,  though  he 
has  never  scrupled  to  be  funny,  even  as  funny  as  he 
can,  whenever  he  has  cared  to  do  so.  This  fact  gives 
him  a  unique  place  among  American  men  of  letters, 
and  testifies  to  the  possession  of  mental  and  moral 
powers  quite  unusual.  Even  so  great  men  as  Dean 
Swift  and  Sydney  Smith  found  that  it  is  perilous  to 
a  man  to  gain  a  reputation  for  wit.  Their 

A  unique  place. 

careers  were   marred   by  men  s  refusal  to 
give    credit  for   solid   ability  and    sterling  worth  to 


CHARLES  DUDLEY  WARNER.  95 

those  on  whom  it  has  come  to  depend  for  its  amuse 
ment.  One  might  hesitate,  perhaps,  to  say  that  Mr. 
Warner's  will  eventually  be  a  greater  name  in  letters 
than  these,  but  he  has  certainly  done  what  they 
signally  failed  to  do. 

III. 

No  English  authors  are  more  generally  read,  or 
are  more  likely  to  retain  their  hold  on  popular  taste, 
than  the  essayists.  Bacon  and  Addison  and  Johnson, 
Lamb  and  De  Quincey  and  Macaulay,  are  names 
that  represent  very  diverse  styles  of  writ-  Popu]arityof 
ing,  as  well  as  hostile  opinions  on  almost  the  Essay- 
every  question  of  religion,  history,  and  politics. 
Nevertheless,  in  letters  they  meet  on  common  ground 
and  have  certain  common  characteristics.  If  there 
may  be  assumed  to  exist  an  American  school  of 
essayists  at  all  comparable  to  the  English,  Mr. 
Warner  must  certainly  be  given  a  very  high  place 
in  it,  by  the  suffrages  of  future  readers  as  well  as  by 
the  unanimous  consent  of  his  own  day.  The  essay 
seems  to  be  his  natural  vehicle  of  thought,  the  form 
in  which  his  idea  always  expresses  itself  when  he 
does  not  consciously  seek  for  some  other  style  of 
expression.  This  is  evidently  the  case  even  when 
his  books  are  not  avowedly  essays.  His  books  of 
travel,  for  instance,  are  really  essays  on  what  he  has 
seen.  He  is  not  so  much  the  narrator  of  the  small 
adventures  that  befall  the  modern  globe-trotter,  or 


96  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 

the  describer  of  landscape  or  of  the  panorama  of  town 
life,  as  the  philosophic  observer.  The  interest  of  his 
wamer  essen-  books  depends  far  less  on  the  intrinsic 
tiaiiy  an  essayist.  interest  of  what  he  saw  than  on  how  these 
sights  impressed  him.  He  is  one  of  the  most  sub 
jective  of  travellers,  and  one  reads  "  Baddeck "  or 
"  On  the  Nile,"  not  to  learn  anything  about  these 
localities,  —  one  would  go  to  a  guidebook  or  a  gazet 
teer  for  bald  information,  —  but  to  enjoy  the  sen 
sation  of  looking  at  them  through  Mr.  Warner's 
spectacles. 

In  his  avowed  essays,  Mr.  Warner's  most  ambitious 
work  has,  perhaps,  been  his  study  of  Washington 
Irving.  This  first  appeared  in  1880  as  a  Preface  to 
the  "  Geoffrey  Crayon  edition  "  of  Irving's  works,  the 
publication  of  which  was  begun  in  that  year  by  the 
Messrs.  Putnam.  The  year  following,  this  study, 
much  expanded  in  details  but  written  on  the  same 
general  lines,  appeared  as  a  volume  in  the  "  American 
Men  of  Letters  "  series,  of  which  Mr.  Warner  is  the 
wamer  and  general  editor.  This  was  a  peculiarly  con- 
irving.  genial  task,  since  there  is  an  evident 

likeness  of  character  and  literary  taste  between  sub 
ject  and  critic.  This  likeness  does  not  go  beyond  a 
general  sympathy  of  method  and  style ;  it  does  not 
in  the  least  imply  imitation.  Mr.  Warner  does  not 
appear  to  have  "formed  himself"  upon  any  model, 
and  no  mousing  critic  will  ever  be  able  to  establish  an 
undue  resemblance  between  his  work  and  that  of  any 
other  writer ;  but  there  are  certain  elements  in  Irving's 


CHARLES  DUDLEY  WARNER.  97 

work  that  are  found  also  in  his.  He  has  the  more 
correct  taste,  according  to  present  standards,  espe 
cially  in  that  he  is  more  robust  and  virile,  less  given 
to  sentimentality,  and  not  so  prone  to  value  gentility 
above  manhood.  In  appreciation  of  Irving's  best 
work,  in  gentle  but  unsparing  comment  on  his  un 
worthy  performance,  and  in  the  accuracy  with  which 
it  distinguishes  the  one  from  the  other,  this  criti 
cal  essay  must  be  pronounced  work  of  a  very  high 
order. 

As  has  already  been  intimated,  one  of  Mr.  Warner's 
chief  merits  as  an  essayist  is  his  originality.  His 
books  are  evidently  the  work  of  a  man  who  is  accus 
tomed  to  associate  with  the  best  people,  both  in 
society  and  in  books,  but  he  makes  no 

f    i  •       i-  .u  r    t.-       Originality. 

more  parade  of  his  literary  than  of  his 
social  acquaintance.  Very  entertaining  essays  have 
been  written,  and  such  will  doubtless  be  written  again, 
that  are  a  mere  cento  of  fine  passages  openly  or 
secretly  borrowed  from  other  writers.  One  need  not 
deny  that  such  essays  have  their  place,  and  even  show 
a  good  deal  of  cleverness  in  the  writer,  if  one  yet  ex 
presses  a  modest  preference  for  those  that  do  not 
point  out  the  author  as  one  who  has  been  to  a  great 
feast  of  languages  and  stolen  the  scraps,  or  designate 
him  as  an  adroit  snapper  up  of  unconsidered  literary 
trifles.  Mr.  Warner  does  not  appear  before  the 
world  as  a  critic  of  literature  and  of  life  deep  versed 
in  books  and  shallow  in  himself.  He  has  doubtless 
read  widely  —  that  appears  in  a  general  tone  and 

7 


98  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

manner  of  culture  rather  than  in  any  vain  show  of 
learning  —  but  he  has  observed  keenly  and  thought 
much,  viewing  life  from  many  points,  looking  upon  it 
with  the  knowledge  of  a  practical  man  of  affairs,  yet 
with  the  mental  aloofness  of  a  humorist. 

Another  great  merit  of  Mr.  Warner  as  an  essayist 
is  his  independence.  He  does  not  judge  according  to 
conventional  standards,  but  according  to  the  higher 
verities  of  character.  This  power  to  see  things  as  they 
are,  undistorted  by  the  media  of  current  ideas,  he 
showed  in  a  truly  remarkable  way  in  his  book  "  On 
Horseback  through  the  South."  The 

Independence. 

reader  of  that  book  must  remember  that 
its  author  was  in  his  youth  an  abolitionist,  and  through 
out  his  manhood  had  been  a  Republican  ;  that  he  had 
been  for  many  years  editor  of  the  chief  Republican 
newspaper  of  a  State  in  which  almost  every  citizen 
of  wealth  or  culture  or  social  standing  was  a  Repub 
lican.  There  was  every  reason  in  the  world  why  he 
should  have  been  swayed  by  ancient  prejudices,  by 
present  partisanship,  by  social  feeling,  and  all  uncon 
sciously  to  himself  should  have  been  unable  to  see 
any  good  in  the  South,  or  any  prophecy  of  hope  for 
the  future  of  that  section.  Just  the  reverse  was  the 
fact.  Casting  aside  all  the  sentiments  and  prepos 
sessions  of  his  past,  Mr.  Warner  travelled  with  a  mind 
open  to  receive  his  impressions  from  the  facts  them 
selves,  as  he  saw  them.  He  was  not  such  a  fool  as 
to  suppose  that  he  saw  in  this  brief  trip  everything  to 
be  seen ;  but  what  can  any  traveller  do  more  than 


CHARLES  DUDLEY  WARNER.  99 

carefully  observe  and  truthfully  tell  what  he  does  see? 
This  Mr.  Warner  did  with  so  much  intelligence,  accur 
acy,  and  faithfulness  as  to  win  the  sturdy  dislike  of 
many  with  whom  he  had  been  politically  on  Horseback 

.     f.  XT        r~-          i  through  the 

associated  for  years.  No  Southern  man  South. 
could  have  given  a  more  hopeful  picture  of  the  New 
South,  and  no  Southern  man's  description  would 
have  been  received  with  such  credence  as  was  Mr. 
Warner's.  Recognizing  the  fact  that  the  picture  was 
only  a  partial  one,  the  people  of  the  North  saw  in 
it  much  to  warrant  bright  hopes  of  the  future,  and 
many  of  the  misapprehensions  and  misgivings  indus 
triously  fostered  by  politicians  for  selfish  purposes 
were  incontinently  swept  away  with  other  rubbish  that 
had  accumulated  since  the  Civil  War.  Mr.  Warner  has 
written  books  that  will  probably  be  read  long  after 
this,  but  nothing  that  he  has  ever  done  constitutes  a 
better  title  to  the  grateful  remembrance  of  Americans 
who  love  their  country. 

IV. 

EVERY  woman,  it  has  been  said,  has  it  in  her  to 
write  at  least  one  novel,  but  why  not  every  man  as 
well?  It  was  to  be  expected  that  so  enterprising  and 
successful  a  writer  as  Mr.  Warner  would  sooner  or 
later  try  his  hand  at  fiction  ;  the  only  wonder  is  that 
he  has  never  yielded  to  the  temptation  to  "  drop  into 
poetry."  It  is  only  within  a  few  years,  however,  that 
he  has  made  the  venture,  and  his  stories  are  still  but 


100  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

two :    "  Their    Pilgrimage,"   and  "  A  Little    Journey 

in  the  World."     Both  of  these  ventures  have   been 

fairly  successful, —  sufficiently  so  to  warrant 

Two  novels.         r        1 

further  attempts,  but  by  no  means  so  strik 
ingly  successful  as  to  eclipse,  or  even  to  rival,  his 
work  as  an  essayist.  A  disciple  of  the  new  school  of 
realism  might  object  that  Mr.  Warner  has  not  eman 
cipated  himself  from  slavery  to  traditional  theories  of 
the  novel.  For  one  thing  he  shows  too  much  desire 
to  construct  a  plot  —  even  though  he  is  not  entirely 
successful  in  the  attempt  —  to  win  praise  from  this 
school.  Then  in  his  representation  of  character  he  is 
not  so  stiffly  and  dryly  realistic  as  it  is  latterly  the 
fashion  to  be.  His  people  talk  too  much  like  living 
men  and  women.  He  does  not  trouble  himself  to  affect 
profound  philosophy  of  life  or  art,  like  one  who  stalks 

about,  — 

"  His  cogitative  faculties  immersed 
In  cogibundity  of  cogitation." 

In  a  word,  he  is  in  great  danger  of  excommunication 
from  the  church  of  true  believers,  who  hold,  as  is  well 
known,  that  a  novel  must  be  so  vapid  or  so  foul  that 
nobody  can  read  it.  This,  however,  though  it  make 
him  the  scoff  of  the  elect,  is  not  a  serious  objection  to 
those  of  us  who  are  not  ashamed  to  be  frankly  Philis 
tine,  and  bow  down  to  our  ancient  idols,  Scott  and 
Dumas,  Dickens  and  Thackeray  and  George  Eliot; 
who  have  a  sneaking  fondness  for  Robert  Louis 
Stevenson  and  Rider  Haggard,  and  are  not  even  above 
being  entertained  by  an  adventure  of  Terence  Mul- 


CHARLES  DUDLEY   WARNER.  IOI 

vaney's.  Indeed,  were  one  to  pick  a  quarrel  with  Mr. 
Warner  at  all  on  the  score  of  his  fiction,  it  would  be 
on  the  ground  that  he  has  not  the  full  courage  of  his 
convictions.  He  sometimes  sacrifices  to  the  god  of 
realism.  Thus  "  Their  Pilgrimage  "  reads  in  spots  as 
if  it  had  been  written  to  be  a  guide-book  for  certain 
fashionable  resorts  and  afterward  made  over  into  a 
novel.  "  A  Little  Journey  in  the  World  "  is  almost 
too  carefully  lifelike  a  study  of  the  "  Napoleon  of 
Finance "  with  whom  more  than  one  recent  Wall 
Street  transaction  has  made  every  reader  of  newspapers 
familiar.  These  are  at  worst  venial  faults. 

One  is  compelled  to  add,  nevertheless,  that  both 
these  books  show  a  lack  of  that  technical  skill  in  the 
art  of  fiction  which  comes  from  long  practice.  They 
are  the  books  of  a  gifted  amateur,  rather  than  of  a 
trained  novelist.  They  would  have  been  excellent  as 
the  first  ventures  in  literature  of  a  young  man ;  they 
are  not  without  promise  as  the  first  novels  Lack  technical 
of  any  writer;  but  they  do  not  reach  a  skilL 
level  in  fiction  comparable  to  their  author's  eminence, 
so  well  won,  in  another  department  of  literature.  It 
is  hard  to  say  whether  he  would  do  better  to  make 
further  experiment,  with  a  prospect  of  genuine  success 
before  him,  or  continue  to  do  the  work  for  which  he 
had  before  shown  so  singular  fitness.  The  latter  course 
might  be  pronounced  the  more  prudent,  but  the 
former  if  crowned  with  success  in  the  end  might  do 
more  to  enhance  his  repute,  enlarge  his  audience,  and 
increase  his  usefulness.  All  depends  on  whether  he 


102  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

is  himself  conscious  of  having  a  further  message  for 
the  world  that  can  be  delivered  in  no  other  way  so 
well  as  through  the  medium  of  the  novel.  It  would 
be  unfortunate  if  one  who  stands  in  the  front  rank  of 
essayists  should  decline  to  the  third  rank  among 
novelists.  And  yet  analogy  seems  to  point  out  such 
a  fate  as  only  too  probable.  Bayard  Taylor  and 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  are  examples  of  men  who 
have  done  work  of  the  highest  worth  in  poetry  and  in 
general  prose  writing,  but  came  far  short  of  success 
as  writers  of  fiction.  Taylor's  "  Story  of  Kennett  " 
and  the  Autocrat's  "Elsie  Venner "  are  far  from 
failures,  they  would  indeed  have  been  successes  for 
other  men,  but  they  are  not  worthy  of  the  best  powers 
of  the  authors,  as  shown  in  other  forms  of  literary 
expression.  Fiction  was  not,  for  either  of  these,  the 
best  way  of  giving  his  message  to  the  world. 

Mr.  Warner  is  still  in  the  prime  of  life.     Not  for 
another  decade  at  least  will  he  need  to  say,  — 

"  It  is  time  to  be  old, 
To  take  in  sail." 

In  this  matter  we  Americans  are  improving,  and  no 
longer  look  on  a  man  as  beginning  to  fall  into  his 
dotage  the  minute  he  has  passed  fifty.  The  men 
between  sixty  and  ninety  have,  with  rare  exceptions, 
been  the  real  rulers  of  the  world ;  and  when  a  man  of 
fifty  wins  a  prominent  place  in  imperial  affairs,  Eng 
lishmen  commonly  speak  of  him  as  rather  young  for 


CHARLES  DUDLEY  WARNER.  103 

such  responsibility,  —  this,  too,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
Pitt  was  Premier  at  twenty-five.  That  the  ripest  fruit 
is  yet  to  come  from  Mr.  Warner's  tree  of  wisdom  is  a 
reasonable  forecast,  which  ^very  one  who  loves  his 
country  and  enjoys  a  good  book  will  earnestly  hope 
may  be  realized. 


VI. 

THOMAS   BAILEY   ALDRICH. 

ANEW  HAMPSHIRE   town  was  a  good  place 
to  be  born  and  bred  in  some  fifty  years  ago. 
Especially  if  it  were  a  thriving  seaport  town,  with 
a  good    "academy"  and  plenty  of  chance  for  fish 
ing  and  boating,  it  was  a  very  paradise  for  a  boy. 
It  was  such  a  town  —  namely,  Portsmouth 

Portsmouth.         _  .^      ^.^      ThQmas       Bailey      Aldrich 

came  November  11,  1836,  and  it  was  here  that  the 
foundations  of   his    character   were   laid.      Shortly 
after  his  birth,    his   father  removed  to  Louisiana, 
and  there  invested  his  capital  in  a  banking  business, 
—  invested  it  so  securely,   so  the  son  informs  us, 
that  he  was  never  able  to  get  any  of  it  out  again. 
After  a  few  years  the  father  and  mother  decided 
that  New  Orleans  was  no  place  for  the  up-bringing 
of  a  Yankee  youth,  and  accordingly  "Tom  Bailey" 
was  sent  back  to  Portsmouth  to   sojourn  with  his 
relatives   and   get    an    education.      The   history  of 
those  years  at  Portsmouth  he  has  himself  given  us 
in  "The  Story  of  a  Bad  Boy"  (Boston,   1869), —a 
book  that  delights  young  and  old  in  almost  equal 
measure.     The  boys  enjoy  it  because  it  is  so  per- 


THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH.  1 05 

feet  a  picture  of  a  boy's  life,  full  of  amusing  pranks 
and  adventures,  and  written  in  a  spirit  of  boyish 
ness  that  manhood  had  not  outgrown.  Their  elders 
value  the  book  somewhat  for  this  very  freshness  of 
spirit,  but  still  more  for  its  delicate  humor  and  the 
literary  charm  of  the  narrative.  "Tom  Bailey" 
was  a  bad  boy  only  in  a  Pickwickian  sense.  He 
was  the  opposite  of  the  "good  little  boy"  of  the 
story  books,  who  always  died  young.  That  is  to 
say,  he  was  a  genuine  boy,  who  would  much  rather 
spend  his  stray  pennies  for  "bull's-eyes"  The«bad 
than  give  them  to  send  missionaries  to  boy'" 
the  heathen  ;  who  dearly  loved  a  frolic  and  had  no 
desire  to  be  an  angel.  Of  course  he  got  into 
scrapes,  and  of  course  he  tried  to  run  away  to 
sea, —  no  New  England  boy  of  any  spirit  failed  to  do 
that  at  some  time,  —  but  these  are  the  worst  things 
that  he  brings  forward  to  justify  his  self-imposed 
title.  In  all  of  Mr.  Aldrich's  writings  one  seems 
to  detect  the  savor  of  that  New  England  boyhood. 


I. 

THIS  happy  youth-time  and  an  education  that  was 
to  end  with  a  course  at  Harvard  were  brought  to 
an  untimely  close  by  the  failure  of  the  An  interrupted 
father's  New  Orleans  business,  closely  education- 
followed  by  his  death.  Relatives  were  ready  and 
more  than  willing  to  furnish  the  means  for  the 
college  course,  but  young  Aldrich,  while  no  dul- 


IO6  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

lard  at  his  books,  had  never  developed  any  marked 
scholastic  tastes,  and  he  was  too  self-reliant  to  accept 
the  proffered  aid.  It  seemed  better  to  him  to  make 
the  plunge  at  once  into  the  great  world  and  seek 
his  fortune.  An  uncle  who  was  a  merchant  in  New 
York  offered  him  a  clerkship,  and  the  youth  of  six 
teen  entered  on  a  business  career  that  he  doubtless 
hoped  would  be  brilliant,  but  which  proved  remark 
able  for  little  else  than  its  brevity. 

It  does  not  appear,  at  least  from  any  of  his  own 
confidences,  that  Mr.  Aldrich  was  a  precocious 
writer.  He  never  lisped  in  verses;  he  did  not 
produce  plays  and  novels  by  the  ream  in  his  salad 
days ;  he  was  too  healthy  and  active  a  boy  to  spend 
hours  sacred  to  play  in  spoiling  paper  and  inking 
himself.  But  he  had  the  root  of  the  matter  in  him 

Drops  into  nOne    the    leSS>     and    Q2LT^    'IU    his    " teenS  " 

Poetry'  his  bent  showed  itself.     The  "Ballad  of 

Babie  Bell "  he  had  written  and  printed  before  he 
was  twenty;  and  if  he  has  written  stronger  verses 
since,  he  has  not  written  anything  more  sweet  and 
tenderly  pathetic.  One  may  gratefully  note  in 
passing,  as  a  mark  of  sounder  taste,  that  in  the 
later  editions  of  his  poems  Mr.  Aldrich  has  dropped 
the  affected  spelling  that  originally  spoiled  this 
poem,  and  we  have  now  the  "Ballad  of  Baby  Bell." 
It  was  a  few  affectations  like  this,  and  a  somewhat 
dandified  style  of  portrait  published  with  some  of 
his  earlier  works,  that  made  many  people  look  on 
Mr.  Aldrich  for  a  long  time  as  a  literary  Miss 


THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH.  IO/ 

Nancy.     They  were  slow  in  giving  him  credit  for 
the  real  virile  power  that  his  writings  show. 

Even  during  his  clerkship  days  Mr.  Aldrich  spent 
more  hours  at  the  shrine  of  the  Muses  than  in  the 
temple  of  Mammon.  This  is  not  to  say  that  he 
was  an  idle  and  inefficient  clerk;  it  is  merely  to 
say  that  his  business  service,  though  conscientious, 
was  perfunctory,  and  that  the  work  to  which  his 
heart  was  given  was  that  of  letters.  Nor  need 
one  hesitate  to  say  that  he  chose  the  better  part. 
Doubtless  the  posting  of  ledgers  is  a  calling  as  full 
of  dignity  and  as  worthy  of  honor  as  that  of  poet 
or  romancer,  provided  one  has  the  vocation  and 
honestly  obeys  it. 

"  Who  sweeps  a  room  as  for  Thy  cause 
Makes  that  and  th'  action  fine." 

But  the  posting  of  ledgers  is  not  honorable  work 
for  him  who  is  conscious  of  another  vocation;  it 
can  at  best  be  nothing  more  than  an  honest  way  of 
earning  his  bread.  For  three  years  the  budding 
author  continued  his  attempt  to  serve  two  masters, 
and  then  gave  up  the  struggle,  devoting  The  parting  of 
himself  without  reserve  to  the  Muses.  A  theways- 
happy  choice  this  was  for  American  literature,  and 
a  fortunate  one  it  has  proved  to  be  for  the  author, 
but  the  issue  was  for  a  time  doubtful.  At  that  day 
there  was  little  encouragement  for  a  young  man 
to  undertake  the  earning  of  a  living  by  his  pen. 
"  Knickerbocker's  "  and  "  Putnam's  "  and  "  Godey's  " 


108  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

were  the  only  periodicals  then  published  that  could 
accept  and  pay  for  even  an  occasional  contribution. 
Mr.  Aldrich  was  compelled,  therefore,  to  look  for 
some  semi-literary  occupation  that  would  ensure 
him  a  living  while  he  wrote.  This  he  found  for  a 
time  in  a  publishing  house,  for  which  he  acted  as 
"  reader"  of  manuscripts  submitted  for  publication, 
and  as  a  proof-reader  also.  In  1856  he  joined  the 
staff  of  the  "Home  Journal,"  then  conducted  by 
Messrs.  Willis  and  Morris. 

Mr.  Aldrich' s  connection  with  New  York  lasted, 
with  varying  fortunes,  until  1870.  While  here  he 
cemented  friendships  with  many  of  the  young  men 
Early  friend-  °^  letters  of  his  day,  — notably  with  Sted- 
shlps>  man,  Stoddard,  and  Bayard  Taylor,  — 

friendships  that  have  lasted  unbroken  to  the  pres 
ent  day,  or  have  been  severed  only  by  death.  He 
seems  to  have  been  a  man  who  made  friends  easily, 
and  he  had  also  the  qualities  that  hold  friends  once 
made.  How  much  he  is  respected  and  admired  by 
his  fellow-craftsmen  was  shown  clearly  in  the  pub 
lic  dinner  lately  given  him  by  New  York  men  of 
letters,  who  vied  with  one  another  to  do  him 
fitting  honor.  But  aside  from  this  circle  of  friends, 
it  would  be  hard  to  say  that  the  New  York  experi 
ences  of  Mr.  Aldrich  made  any  impression  on  his 
life  and  work,  — any  impression  that  can  be  identi 
fied,  one  means,  of  course.  That  these  years  had 
an  important  part  in  the  making  of  the  man  it 
would  be  absurd  to  question.  The  point  is  that 


THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH.  1 09 

in  his  writings  there  is  singularly  little  trace  of 
his  New  York  life.  He  has  attempted  no  study 
of  metropolitan  life  in  his  more  ambitious  work, 
and  even  in  his  short  stories  and  jeux  d' esprit  the 
tone  of  the  metropolis  is  not  discernible.  One 
might  almost  infer  that  he  has,  for  some  reason 
good  in  his  own  sight,  deliberately  avoided  turn 
ing  his  New  York  life  to  account  in  his  verse 
and  fiction.  His  readers  may  well  regret  that  this 
is  the  case,  for  he  is  a  man  in  some  ways  pecu 
liarly  fitted  both  to  appreciate  and  to  describe  life 
in  New  York. 

II. 

THE    second    period    in    Mr.    Aldrich's   literary 
career  began  with  his  removal  to  Boston,  in  1870, 
to  become  the  editor  of   "Every   Satur-  A journalistic 
day,"  a  young  and  ambitious  periodical,   exPeriment- 
that  it  was  hoped  would  become  a  sort  of  Ameri 
can  "Spectator."      More  purely  literary  than   the 
"  Nation,  "  it  was  not  adapted  to  interest  and  hold 
so  large  a  constituency  of  readers,  and  its  success 
did  not  meet  the  expectations  of  the  founders.     It 
may  be  doubted  whether  a  high-class  literary  weekly 
can  succeed  in  the  United  States, —  the  "Critic"  is 
the  nearest  approach  to  such  a  paper,  —  but  it  seems 
clear  that  the  failure  of  "  Every  Saturday  "  to  be  a 
brilliant  success  was,   at  any  rate,  no  fault  of  its 
editor.     A  better  choice  for  the  post  could  not  well 


110  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

have  been  made.  He  had  published  "The  Dells," 
a  volume  of  verse,  in  1855;  "Babie  Bell  and  Other 
Poems"  in  1856;  and  collected  editions  of  his 
poems  in  1863  and  1865  respectively.  He  had 
experience  in  practical  work  for  periodicals  and 
publishers  that  had  prepared  him  for  editing  such 
a  journal  with  intelligent  appreciation  of  the  public 
taste,  and  then  he  had  a  considerable  personal  ac 
quaintance  with  American  writers  that  was  of  great 
value  to  a  young  periodical,  since  it  was  easy  for 
him  to  secure  the  co-operation  of  the  best  talent. 
All  this  did  not  avail,  however,  to  make  the  paper 
financially  successful.  When  in  1874  its  publica 
tion  was  suspended,  Mr.  Aldrich  might  have  made 
his  valedictory  in  Cato's  words:  — 

"  'T  is  not  in  mortals  to  command  success, 
But  we  '11  do  more,  Sempronius  ;  we  '11  deserve  it." 

This  did  not  complete  his  editorial  career.  A 
few  years  later — in  1881,  to  be  precise  —  Mr. 
Editor  of  the  Howells  retired  from  the  editorship  of 
Atlantic.  «The  Atlantic  Monthly,"  and  the  pub 
lishers  naturally  turned  to  Mr.  Aldrich  as  to  a  fore 
ordained  successor.  For  some  years  he  had  been 
a  regular  and  welcome  contributor  to  the  magazine; 
he  was  familiar  with  its  traditions,  and  by  training 
and  temperament  was  suited  to  carry  on  the  work, 
with  some  infusion  of  original  ideas,  but  avoiding 
any  marked  break  with  the  past.  This  work  he 
continued  until  1890.  Without  disparagement  of 


THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH.  Ill 

other  editors  the  "  Atlantic  "  has  had  —  and  there 
has  been  a  brilliant  succession  of  them  —  one  can 
not  fail  to  recognize  in  the  work  of  these  years  the 
very  highest  editorial  and  literary  ability.  "A 
nightingale  dies  for  shame  if  another  bird  sings 
better,"  says  some  old  writer,  but  Mr.  Aldrich  has 
never  shown  such  jealousy  of  his  fellow-singers. 
On  the  contrary,  it  was  his  good  fortune  to  bring 
before  the  public  for  the  first  time  writers,  in  both 
verse  and  prose,  of  now  established  reputation;  and 
others,  who  may  have  appeared  in  print  before, 
made  their  present  fame  during  his  editorship. 
Among  these  it  suffices  to  mention  as  examples 
"  Charles  Egbert  Craddock  "  (Miss  Murfree),  Sarah 
Orne  Jewett,  and  Louise  Imogen  Guiney,  with  the 
addition,  possibly,  of  Arthur  Sherburne  Hardy, — 
though  his  reputation  was  fairly  made,  in  the  first 
instance,  by  the  publication  of  a  story  Authors  dis- 
that  had  not  appeared  serially.  It  was  covered< 
creditable  to  the  editor's  enterprise,  however,  that 
he  promptly  "  annexed "  the  new  writer.  Mr. 
Aldrich  held  most  of  the  regular  staff  of  "Atlantic  " 
writers,  even  in  the  face  of  hot  competition  from 
New  York  magazines,  and  their  offers  of  higher 
prices  for  work.  Authors  are  but  human,  however, 
and  it  is  not  wonderful  that  some  forsook  their  New 
England  divinity  and  went  after  strange  gods. 

Since  going  to  Boston,  Mr  Aldrich's  most  impor 
tant  publications  have  been :  two  new  and  enlarged 
editions  of   his  poems  (in  1873  and  1876),   "Mar 


112  AMERICAN   WRITERS   OF  TO-DAY. 

jorie  Daw  and  Other  Stories  "(1873),  "Prudence 
Palfrey"  (1874),  "The  Queen  of  Sheba "  (1877), 
"  The  Stillwater  Tragedy  "  ( 1 880),  "  From 
Ponkapog  to  Pesth,"  and  "Mercedes" 
(both  1883).  All  the  volumes  named,  save  the  last, 
are  prose.  The  title-work  of  the  last  volume  is  a 
prose  tragedy,  but  at  least  half  the  book  consists  of 
"  Later  Lyrics. "  This  is  a  very  respectable  list  of 
works,  as  regards  number  merely,  and  if  it  does 
not  entitle  the  author  to  be  reckoned  the  peer  of 
Messrs.  Howells  and  Crawford  in  industry,  it  shows 
that  he  has  by  no  means  idled  his  time  aimlessly 
away. 

III. 

MR.  ALDRICH'S  prose  writings  fully  deserve  their 
vogue.  There  are  no  cleverer  short  stories  than 
"Marjorie  Daw"  and  its  companions.  Marjorie  in 
The  prose  particular  is  a  masterpiece,  the  surprising 
writings.  conclusion  being  artfully  concealed  from 

the  reader  until  the  very  last  sentence.  The  only 
story  with  which  it  can  be  fairly  compared,  in  this 
particular,  is  Mr.  Frank  R.  Stockton's  "The  Lady 
or  the  Tiger?  "  The  denouement  of  Mr.  Stockton's 
story  may  be  pronounced  the  more  humorous,  but 
that  of  Mr.  Aldrich's  is  certainly  the  more  witty. 
And  in  the  matter  of  style,  Mr.  Stockton  is  nowhere 
in  comparison  with  Mr.  Aldrich.  There  is  in  the 
latter' s  prose  a  bonhomie, — we  have  no  adequate 


THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH.  113 

English  phrase  for  this  combination  of  high  spirits 
and  gentlemanly  manner, —  a  deftness  of  touch,  a 
sureness  of  aim,  a  piquancy  of  flavor,  a  playfulness 
of  wit,  a  delicacy  of  humor,  that  make  it  perfectly 
delightful  reading.  No  other  of  our  writers  has 
caught  so  much  of  the  spirit  of  French  prose, 
save  Mr.  Henry  James;  and  Mr.  Aldrich  deserves 
the  praise  that,  while  he  has  learned  from  the 
French  all  that  they  have  to  teach,  he  has  still 
remained  essentially  American. 

We  have  been  considering  his  short  stories  only 
thus  far,  but  what  has  been  said  is  true  of  the  other 
fictions.  Indeed,  with  the  single  excep-  Longshort. 
t ion  of  "The  Stillwater  Tragedy,"  these  stories' 
books  are  nothing  else  than  long  short-stories,  if 
such  a  Hibernicism  be  permissible.  "The  Queen 
of  Sheba  "  requires  very  large  type  and  very  thick 
"  leads  "  to  draw  it  out  into  the  decent  semblance 
of  a  duodecimo  novel,  and  "  Prudence  Palfrey "  is 
little  better.  But  this  is  a  trifling  detail  after  all; 
what  classifies  these  books  with  short  stories  is  not 
their  actual  length,  but  quality  of  plot.  In  neither 
of  the  two  volumes  named  is  there  material  for  a 
novel.  The  stories  are  so  essentially  simple  and 
uncomplicated,  the  characters  are  so  few  and  so 
easily  developed,  that  to  spin  these  yarns  out  to  the 
orthodox  novel  limit  would  be  to  dilute  all  the 
flavor  and  sparkle  into  unmitigated  flatness.  Mr. 
Aldrich  has  too  nice  a  taste  to  spoil  good  wine  by 
adding  three  times  its  bulk  of  water;  he  is  too  good 

8 


114  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

an  artist  to  disregard  the  self-limited  development 
of  his  plot. 

In  "The  Stillwater  Tragedy"  he  has  a  subject 
that  justifies,  if  it  does  not  require,  more  elaborate 
treatment.  His  characters  are  more  complex;  his 
plot  demands  space  for  working  out  to  a  natural  con 
clusion;  his  situations  are  dramatic.  It  is,  there 
fore,  his  most  ambitious  prose  work,  and  it  shows 
more  power  than  anything  else  he  has  written. 
This  is  true  of  the  artistic  treatment  of  the  theme 
only;  the  moral  element  in  the  book,  while  whole 
some  in  intent,  is  vitiated  by  sentiment.  There 
The  labor  nas  been  no  treatment  of  the  vexed 
question.  » ]a^or  question  "  in  fiction  that  is  not 
weakened  by  its  sentimental  tone.  Sympathy  with 
one  side  or  the  other  has  prevented  all  novelists 
from  throwing  the  white  light  of  truth  on  the  sub 
ject,  and  it  is  probably  in  the  nature  of  things  that 
this  should  always  be  the  case.  Mr.  Aldrich 
comes  short  of  the  highest  achievement  precisely 
where  Dickens  and  Charles  Reade  had  failed  before 
him,  and  it  must  therefore  be  allowed  that  he  has 
at  least  failed  in  good  company.  The  excellences 
of  the  story  are  quite  independent  of  this  defect, 
and  the  book  was  so  good  as  to  warrant  the  hope 
that  its  author  would  at  the  next  trial  rise  much 
higher.  In  the  dozen  years  that  have  since  passed 
there  has  been  no  next  trial,  and  this  book  therefore 
remains  his  high-water  mark  in  prose  writing. 


THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRfCH.  115 


IV. 

As  a  poet,  Mr.  Aldrich  deserves  more  general 
recognition  than  he  has  ever  received.  "  The  Ballad 
of  Baby  Bell,"  one  of  his  earliest  poems, 

His  verse. 

still  remains  that  by  which  he  is  chiefly 
known  to  the  majority  of  readers.      His  circle  of 
admirers   is  comparatively  small,   but  it  comprises 
all  who  have  a  genuine  love  for  poetry,  and  a  culti 
vated  taste,  — all  who  can  enjoy 

"  A  perpetual  feast  of  nectar'd  sweets, 
Where  no  crude  surfeit  reigns." 

We  have  among  our  American  poets,  living  and 
dead,  no  more  intelligent  and  conscientious  artist 
in  verse.  His  conception  of  the  poet's  art  is  well 
expressed  in  some  lines  to  an  unnamed  author:  — 

"  Great  thoughts  in  crude,  inadequate  verse  set  forth, 
Lose  half  their  preciousness,  and  ever  must. 
Unless  the  diamond  with  its  own  rich  dust 
Be  cut  and  polished,  it  seems  little  worth." 

There  has  been  no  lack  of  the  cutting  and  polish 
ing  in  Mr.   Aldrich's  verse,  and  his  workmanship 
approaches  perfection.     He  excels  in  short  poems. 
A  poetic  thought  that  can  be  adequately  set  forth 
in  a  quatrain,  a  sonnet,  a  dozen  couplets,  or  a  half- 
dozen  stanzas,   he  treats  to  perfection,   but  he  has 
never  shown  the  same  ability  to  handle  a  Acarverof 
large  theme.      He  is  a  carver  of  exquisite  cameos- 
cameos,  not  a  sculptor  of  great  statues,  or  a  painter 


Il6  AMERICAN  WRITERS   OF  TO-DAY. 

of  splendid  landscapes.  Let  it  not  be  supposed 
that  this  is  said  in  any  spirit  of  disparagement;  it 
is  merely  a  proper  description  of  the  work  he  has 
chosen  to  do.  Critics  of  all  time  are  agreed  that 
the  lyrics  of  Sappho  evince  a  poetic  genius  not  less 
fine  —  and  perhaps  a  more  precious  poetic  art  — 
than  the  epics  of  Homer.  To  carve  cameos  may 
be  an  art  as  dignified  and  as  worthy  of  the  world's 
honor  as  the  building  of  cathedrals :  that  depends 
on  the  artist,  rather  than  on  the  bulk  of  his 
product. 

The  fault  of  American  literature  in  general  is 
hasty,  crude  workmanship.  Our  writers  are  not 
sufficiently  sincere;  they  lack  genuine  reverence 
for  their  art;  conscientious  fidelity  in  details  they 
have  never  learned.  This  is  true  of  even  so  affluent 
a  genius,  so  perfect  an  artist  when  he  chose  to  take 
Defect  of  pains,  as  Lowell;  and  how  much  truer  it  is 

American  . 

literature.  of  the  ninety  and  nine  who  lack  his  genius 
and  resemble  him  only  in  their  faults.  American 
authors  consider  their  work  done  when  it  is  only 
well  begun,  —  when  they  have  given  a  first  crude, 
imperfect  expression  to  a  happy  inspiration.  The 
weeks  and  months  of  patient  toil  needed  to  cut  and 
polish  the  rough  gem,  they  are  either  unable  or  un 
willing  to  give.  So  far  as  the  artistic  defects  of 
American  literature  may  be  fairly  ascribed  to  in 
ability  to  do  better  work,  the  failure  may  be  par 
donable.  The  slaves  of  the  pen  must  live  of  the 
pen ;  and  bread  must  be  had,  if  the  writing  suffers 


THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH. 


by  undue  haste  to  publish.  Poetry,  however,  is 
rather  a  case  apart.  In  most  instances  the  publi 
cation  of  verses  puts  little  money  in  their  author's 
purse,  —  or  in  the  publisher's  either,  if  all  be  true 
that  's  said,  —  and  the  temptation  to  market  one's 
unripe  fruit  is  not  great.  The  inducement  being 
so  small,  whether  from  poverty  or  from  cupidity, 
to  rush  into  the  market-place  out  of  due  time,  he 
who  prints  his  verse  before  he  has  made  it  as  good 
as  he  can  is  without  excuse.  Mr.  Aldrich  has  no 
cause  to  enter  any  plea  for  mitigation  of  judgment. 
He  has  certainly  done  his  best,  and  that  is  to  suc 
ceed  in  the  noblest  sense,  as  he  himself  says  in  one 
of  his  sugar'd  sonnets  :  — 

"  Enamoured  architect  of  airy  rhyme, 
Build  as  thou  wilt  ;  heed  not  what  each  man  says. 
Good  souls,  but  innocent  of  dreamers'  ways, 
Will  come,  and  marvel  why  thou  wastest  time  ; 
Others,  beholding  how  thy  turrets  climb 
'Twixt  theirs  and  heaven,  will  hate  thee  all  their  days; 
But  most  beware  of  those  who  come  to  praise. 
O  Wondersmith,  O  worker  in  sublime 
And  heaven-sent  dreams,  let  art  be  all  in  all  ; 
Build  as  thou  wilt,  unspoiled  by  praise  or  blame, 
Build  as  thou  wilt,  and  as  thy  light  is  given  : 
Then,  if  at  last  the  airy  structure  fall, 
Dissolve,  and  vanish  —  take  thyself  no  shame. 
They  fail,  and  they  alone,  who  have  not  striven." 

It  cannot  be  said,  because  Mr.  Aldrich  has  con 
fined  himself  chiefly  to  "short  swallow-flights  of 
song,"  that  he  is  incapable  of  a  longer  effort.  His 


Il8  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

"  Spring  in  New  England "  is  the  best  ode  that 
Decoration  Day  has  inspired,  though  not  the  best 
known;  and  the  longest  of  his  poems,  "Judith,"  is 
conceived  in  the  spirit  of  Milton  and  composed  in 
the  spirit  of  Keats.  One  suggests  these  two  names 
only  to  characterize  the  work,  not  to  imply  doubt  of 
its  original  power.  Probably  Mr.  Aldrich  is  too 
fastidious  in  taste,  too  careful  in  workmanship,  to 
attempt  a  long  poem,  in  despair  of  ever  finishing 
it  according  to  his  high  standard  of  excellence. 

In  most  of  his  verse  there  is  a  blithe  and  debonair 
spirit.  Especially  is  the  humor  that  flashes  from 
His  wholesome  m^ny  of  the  poems"  marked  by  this  fresh- 
spint  nesg  Q£  Spirit.  Even  in  the  youthful 

verses  there  is  singularly  little  of  that  cynical, 
world-worn  manner  affected  by  juvenile  poets  in 
general.  Mr.  Aldrich  has  never  posed  as  a  Blighted 
Being.  The  dash  of  cynicism  that  one  occasionally 
lights  on  is  of  the  quiet  sort  that  a  well-bred  man 
of  the  world  now  and  then  shows,  —  not  a  manner 
assumed  for  effect,  but  a  genuine,  though  a  passing, 
mood.  If  one  describe  the  poems  as  a  whole,  in 
any  terms  but  those  of  praise,  it  is  only  to  express 
some  surprise  mingled  with  regret  that  the  author 
has  not  more  frequently  struck  a  note  that  thrills 
one's  higher  nature.  Yet  his  art  is  so  fine  at  its 
best,  so  apparently  spontaneous  in  its  finished 
excellence,  that  all  regret  vanishes  as  one  reads. 
What,  for  instance,  could  be  finer  than  this  closing 
stanza  from  "  Spring  in  New  England  ?  "  — 


THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH.  I IQ 

"  Hark!  'tis  the  bluebird's  venturous  strain 
High  on  the  old  fringed  elm  at  the  gate  — 
Sweet-voiced,  valiant  on  the  swaying  bough, 

Alert,  elate, 

Dodging  the  fitful  spits  of  snow, 
New-England's  poet-laureate 
Telling  us  Spring  has  come  again ! " 

Verse  like  that  ranks  alongside  of  the  best  of 
Shelley  or  Wordsworth;  one's  sole  lament  is  that 
there  should  be  so  little  of  it,  and  that  he  who  is 
so  well  qualified  to  be  nature's  poet  should  have 
employed  himself  so  largely  with  society  verse. 


V. 

AMERICAN  writers  who  have  produced  a  play  that 
has  real  literary  merit,  and  is  at  the  same  time 
adapted  to  stage  representation,  are  few  indeed. 
Mr.  Aldrich  holds  an  honorable  rank  among  this 
small  band  by  reason  of  his  "Mercedes." 
This  drama  was  published  in  1884,  but 
it  was  not  acted  until  1893,  when  it  held  the 
stage  at  Palmer's  Theatre,  New  York,  for  a  week. 
This  is  a  brief,  but  a  decided,  dramatic  success. 
Though  divided  into  two  acts  or  scenes,  the 
drama  is  practically  continuous.  In  the  first  scene 
we  learn  from  a  dialogue  at  the  bivouac  fire  that 
Captain  Luvois  has  been  ordered  to  attack  the 
Spanish  hamlet  of  Arguano  with  a  detachment  of 
French  soldiers,  and  put  all  the  inhabitants  to  the 


120  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

sword.  The  duty  is  most  unwelcome,  for  in  that 
village  dwells  the  woman  he  loves,  whom  he  has 
been  compelled  to  leave  by  the  exigencies  of  mili 
tary  service.  He  is  determined  to  save  her.  In 
the  second  act  Mercedes  is  discovered  in  the 
hamlet  with  her  child,  unable  to  flee  with  her 
neighbors  because  she  cannot  abandon  her  old 
grandmother.  The  soldiers  find  wine,  which  they 
believe  has  been  poisoned.  They  demand  that 
Mercedes  drink  some  of  it  as  a  test ;  and,  believing 
her  lover  false,  and  sick  of  life,  she  drinks  and 
gives  some  of  the  wine  to  her  child.  The  soldiers 
then  drink  and  all  are  poisoned.  Just  then  Luvois 
arrives,  and  Mercedes  lives  only  long  enough  to 
hear  that  he  has  been  faithful  and  still  loves  her; 
but  he,  too,  has  drunk  of  the  wine  before  seeing 
"Supp'dfuii  her-  The  curtain  falls  on  a  stage 
with  horrors."  strewecj  ^'ifa  corpses.  This  is  tragedy 
in  allopathic  doses,  to  be  sure,  yet  the  incident  is 
probable,  possibly  historical,  and  the  strength  of  its 
situations  is  obvious  and  undeniable.  The  theme 
is  worked  out  in  the  details  with  dignity,  self- 
restraint,  and  power,  and  the  literary  finish  is  what 
we  always  expect,  and  never  expect  in  vain,  from 
Mr.  Aldrich.  Altogether,  the  production  of  the 
play  must  be  pronounced  most  gratifying,  since 
it  was  well  staged  and  well  acted,  and  pleased 
about  equally  the  critics  and  the  public.  It  does 
not  place  the  author  among  the  great  dramatists, 
but  it  marks  him  a  successful  playwright,  and  war- 


THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH.  121 

rants  expectations  of  something  stronger  when  he 
next  essays  dramatic  composition. 

VI. 

IT  is  the  distinction  of  Mr.  Aldrich  that  he 
belongs  to  the  small  group  of  American  writers 
who  have  a  European  reputation.  Several  of  his 
stories  have  received  the  compliment  of  publica 
tion  in  a  French  version  in  the  "  Revue  des  deux 
Mondes,"  which  is  the  blue  ribbon  of  the  Th?  British 
novelist.  His  books  have  been  "  pirated  "  "Pirate-" 
freely  by  those  canny  European  publishers  who  have 
stolen  both  wisely  and  too  well.  His  name  is 
sometimes  mentioned  in  English  periodicals  with 
that  tone  of  polite  condescension  which  the  Briton 
means  for  compliment.  It  is  true  that  the  refer 
ences  to  him  and  his  writings  are  not  always  intel 
ligent,  and  betray  on  the  writer's  part  a  plentiful 
lack  of  all  knowledge  save  the  one  fact  that  Mr. 
Aldrich  does  exist.  Mr.  Brander  Matthews  not 
long  ago,  in  the  course  of  some  strictures  on  the 
insularity  of  English  men  of  letters,  instanced  the 
case  of  a  critic  of  pretensions  who  had  classified 
the  "  Queen  of  Sheba "  among  the  poems  of  Mr. 
Aldrich.  He  very  properly  said  that  this  was  a 
sort  of  ignorance  that  would  be  considered  dis 
graceful  in  an  American  writing  of  Mr.  Andrew 
Lang,  for  instance.  Mr.  Lang  came  to  the  defence 
of  his  brothers  of  the  craft,  and  denied  their  insu- 


122  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

larity,  but  in  so  doing  gave  an  amusing  proof 
that  Mr.  Matthews  was  right.  "I  have  not  read 
Mr.  Aldrich's  'Queen  of  Sheba '  "  (I  quote  from 
memory,  but  with  substantial  correctness,  I  am 
sure),  "but  I  am  quite  willing  to  believe  that  it  is 
equal  to  his  other  poems."  The  point,  of  course,  is 
insular  ignor-  that  tne  Briton  is  not  compelled  to  write 
about  American  authors,  —  he  always  has 
the  privilege  of  silence,  —  but  if  he  does  undertake 
to  write  about  them,  he  should  at  least  be  familiar 
enough  with  the  title-pages  of  the  books  mentioned 
not  to  confound  a  prose  romance  with  poetry.  Mr. 
Matthews  was  quite  justified  in  directing  attention 
to  the  fact  that  the  English  man  of  letters  seldom 
thinks  it  worth  his  while  to  learn  something  about 
American  matters  before  he  undertakes  to  write 
about  them.  Why,  indeed,  should  he,  since  he 
writes  for  a  public  so  much  more  ignorant  than  him 
self  that  his  worst  errors,  and  even  his  deliberate 
inventions,  will  pass  for  accurate  knowledge? 

Mr.  Aldrich  is  still  on  the  sunny  side  of  sixty. 
His  friends  declare  that  he  has  discovered  the 
Reserved  secret  of  perpetual  youth,  and  that  while 
power.  others  grow  gray  and  infirm,  he  is  still 

"alert,  elate,"  with  body  unworn  and  mind  unflag 
ging,  capable  of  greater  things  than  he  has  yet 
accomplished.  There  is,  as  one  reads  his  books,  an 
impression  left  that  he  has  never  quite  put  forth  his 
full  strength.  The  well-poised  mind  and  deliberate 


THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRJCH.  12$ 

art  imply  reserve  power.  That  this  may  prove  to 
be  a  correct  forecast,  and  that  the  crowning  master 
piece  is  yet  to  come,  will  be  hoped  by  none  so 
devoutly  as  by  those  who  appreciate  most  justly 
both  the  excellence  and  the  defect  of  what  Mr. 
Aldrich  has  thus  far  produced. 


VII. 

MARK  TWAIN. 

ON  a  certain  street  in  Hartford,  Conn.,  towns 
men  showing  the  local  lions  to  the  visitor 
from  abroad  will  point  with  pride  to  a  group  of 
three  comfortable,  not  to  say  handsome,  houses  as 
the  homes  of  as  many  distinguished  American 
writers.  In  one  of  these  houses  lives  Charles 
Three  Hart-  Dudley  Warner,  in  another,  Harriet 
ford  «iions."  Beecher  Stowe;  the  third,  the  finest  of 
the  three,  is  the  winter  home  of  the  writer  known 
the  world  over  as  Mark  Twain.  His  winter  home 
only  is  here,  for  this  favorite  of  fortune  has  a 
summer  home  also,  at  Elmira,  N.  Y.,  where  he  has 
done  most  of  his  literary  work  of  late  years.  Mr. 
Clemens  is  not  like  most  American  authors;  his 
fertile  season  is  the  hot  weather,  when  brain- 
workers  in  general  are  either  taking  a  vacation  or 
envying  those  who  can  take  one.  To  a  building 
detached  from  the  house,  and  a  room  accessible  to 
no  one  when  he  has  once  locked  the  door,  he 
repairs  every  morning  after  breakfast,  and  remains 
there  the  better  part  of  the  day  with  his  work. 
Those  who  think  that  books,  especially  the  books 


MARK  TWAIN.  125 

of  a  "funny  man,"  write  themselves  will  do  well 
not  to  express  that  opinion  within  reach  of  Mark 
Twain's  arm  —  or  pen.  No  American  writer  has 
won  his  fame  by  more  honorable  toil  than  Mr. 
Clemens. 


IT  is  not  surprising  that  Mr.  Warner  and  Mrs. 
Stowe  should  be  neighbors  in  a  staid  Connecticut 
town ;  Mrs.  Stowe  was  born  in  that  State,  and  Mr. 
Warner  is  a  New  Englander.  But  that  Mark  'I'wam 
should  have  drifted  to  Hartford  as  a  permanent 
residence  is  only  less  astonishing  than  Mr.  Cable's 
emigration  from  New  Orleans  to  Northampton, 
Mass.  For  Samuel  Langhorne  Clemens  A  Mjssouri 
first  saw  the  light  in  the  village  of  Florida,  boy- 
State  of  Missouri.  This  was  in  1835,  at  a  time 
when  Missouri  was  on  the  very  frontier  of  civiliza 
tion,  and  its  exact  limits  had  not  yet  been  defined. 
The  condition  of  this  western  country  at  that  time 
may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  St.  Louis  was 
then  a  city  of  some  twelve  thousand  people,  while 
Chicago  was  not  incorporated  as  a  city  until  1837, 
when  it  had  rather  more  than  four  thousand  inhabi 
tants.  It  is  not  wonderful,  therefore,  that  all  the 
education  young  Clemens  received  was  what  he 
could  obtain  in  the  village  school  of  Hannibal. 
This  was  supplemented  by  his  training  in  a  print 
ing-office,  which  he  entered  at  the  age  of  thirteen. 


126  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

A  bright  boy  in  an  old-fashioned  printing-office 
was  certain  to  pick  up  a  very  fair  education  of  the 
practical  kind.  He  would  learn  spelling,  punctua 
tion,  and  the  other  minor  moralities  of  literature, 
as  these  things  are  seldom  learned  by  boys  whose 
schooling  may  have  been  better,  but  who  enter 
other  callings.  He  would  also  gain  some  knowl 
edge  of  machinery;  for  in  a  country  office  the  boy 
has  to  learn  to  work  the  press,  and  to  repair  it 
when  it  gets  out  of  order,  as  it  has  a  trick  of  doing 
often. 

When  the  lad  had  acquired  enough  skill  to  call 
himself  a  journeyman  printer  he  set  out  to  see  the 
world,  and  his  native  State  thenceforth  saw  little 
The  "jour"  °f  him.  Those  were  the  halycon  days 
printer.  Q£  the  « jour  "  printer;  the  world  was  all 

before  him  where  to  choose.  He  set  out,  with  no 
kit  of  tools  to  carry,  and  with  certainty  of  employ 
ment  almost  anywhere  he  might  go,  or  of  assist 
ance  from  his  felltfws  in  the  craft,  thanks  to  a  sort 
of  free-masonry  that  prevailed  everywhere  among 
them.  He  might  work  his  passage  all  around  the 
continent  and  see  life  in  all  its  phases,  as  no 
man  of  any  other  trade  or  profession  could.  We 
are  told  that  Mr.  Clemens  worked  at  his  trade  by 
turns  in  St.  Louis,  Cincinnati,  Philadelphia,  and 
New  York ;  and  doubtless,  if  the  whole  truth  were 
known,  this  would  be  a  very  imperfect  catalogue 
of  the  places  where  he  has  stood  at  the  case  in 
his  day. 


MARK   TWAIN.  12? 


By  1851  he  had  tired  of  wandering  about  in  this 
way,    and   became    enamoured   of    another   calling 
not  less  adventurous.     He  "learned  the    A  Mississippi 
river"  and  became    a   Mississippi   pilot,    pllot' 
continuing  in  this  work  for  some  ten  years  it  would 
seem.     At  any  rate,  the  next  change  in  his  life  of 
which  one  can  learn  is  his  appointment  in  1861  as 
private  secretary  to  his  brother,  who  had  obtained 
an  appointment  as   Secretary  of   the   Territory  of 
Nevada.     Going  to  Nevada  means,  sooner 

Tries  mining, 

or  later,  going  into  mining.  It  seems 
to  have  been  sooner  with  Mr.  Clemens,  but  he 
failed  to  "make  his  pile,"  as  the  miners  say,  though 
he  did  lay  the  foundations  for  the  sympathetic 
studies  of  life  in  this  region  that  he  gave  the 
world  in  "Roughing  It."  No  doubt  it  was  this 
failure  that  turned  him  again  to  the  printing-office, 
but  this  time  he  had  a  promotion;  he  was  made 
city  editor  of  the  Virginia  City  "  Enterprise."  The 
rise  from  the  composing-room  to  the  editorial  desk 
in  those  days,  and  in  a  far  western  town,  was  not 
so  long  a  step.  One  conjectures  that  the  city 
editor  of  the  "  Enterprise  "  "  surprised  by  himself  " 
the  entire  reportorial  staff,  and  usually  then  journal- 
carried  his  office  in  his  hat.  What  we  lsm< 
are  more  interested  to  know  than  the  number  of 
assistants  this  city  editor  had  is  the  fact  that  he 
began  while  in  this  service  to  write  humorous  con 
tributions,  and  to  sign  them  "Mark  Twain," — a 
reminiscence  of  his  pilot  days,  when  this  was  a 


128  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

frequent  call  from  the  man  who  was  taking  sound 
ings  from  the  deck  of  a  Mississippi  boat. 

Mr.  Clemens  was  now  beginning  his  real  work, 
but  he  had  not  yet  settled  into  his  stride,  if  we  may 
borrow  a  phrase  from  athletics.  In  1865  we  find 
him  in  San  Francisco,  engaging  in  journalism  and 
in  mining  operations.  He  spent  six  months  of  the 
following  year  in  Hawaii,  and  on  his  return  deliv 
ered  lectures  in  California.  These,  together  with 
other  of  his  published  writings,  were  gathered  into 
The  jumping  a  volume  called  "The  Jumping  Frog  and 
Frog<  Other  Sketches  "  (New  York,  1867).  He 

was  now  fairly  launched  in  a  literary  career,  but  his 
first  great  success  was  to  come,  though  he  had  not 
long  to  wait  for  it.  The  publication  of  his  account 
of  a  voyage  through  the  Mediterranean,  and  travels 
innocents  'm  tne  adjoining  countries,  under  the  title 
Abroad.  of  ,<The  Innocents  Abroad"  (Hartford, 

1869),  made  him  famous  at  once;  one  hundred  and 
twenty-five  thousand  copies  were  sold  in  three 
years,  and  probably  not  less  than  half  a  million 
copies  have  been  sold  by  now,  and  yet  the  public 
is  not  tired  of  buying  it.  The  fortunate  author 
was  now  independent.  After  a  brief  connection  with 
the  "Buffalo  Express,"  and  the  editing  of  a  depart 
ment  in  the  "Galaxy,"  he  settled  for  the  rest  of 
his  life  in  Hartford,  —  not  to  be  icjle,  but  to  work 
leisurely,  with  little  or  no  temptation  to  spoil  his 
writing  by  undue  haste  to  get  it  to  market.  Since 
then  he  has  published:  "Roughing  It"  (Hartford, 


MARK  TWAIN.  I2Q 


1872),  "The  Adventures  of  Tom  Sawyer"  (Hart 
ford,  1876),  "A  Tramp  Abroad"  (Hartford,  1880), 
"The  Prince  and  the  Pauper  "  (New  York, 

Other  books. 

1882),  "The  Adventures  of  Huckleberry 
Finn"  (New  York,  1884),  "A  Yankee  at  King 
Arthur's  Court,"  (New  York,  1889),  besides  several 
other  volumes  of  less  note.  He  has  also  edited 
"A  Library  of  Wit  and  Humor  "  (New  York,  1888), 
the  best  collection  ever  made  of  representative 
pieces  by  American  humorists.  In  the  preface 
he  characteristically  remarks  that,  could  he  have 
had  his  way,  the  "  Library  "  would  have  consisted 
wholly  of  extracts  from  his  own  works.  The  reader 
may  season  this  with  as  many  grains  of  salt  as  he 
chooses. 


II. 

THE  immediate  and  permanent  popularity  of 
"Innocents  Abroad"  is  not  wonderful;  it  is  a  book 
of  even  greater  merit  than  the  public  gave  it  credit 
for  possessing.  It  was  read  and  enjoyed  for  its  fun, 
and  though  nearly  twenty-five  years  have  passed,  it 
is  still  a  funny  book,  whether  one  reads  it  now  for 
the  first  or  the  forty  first  time.  But  underneath 
the  fun  was  an  earnest  purpose  that  the  great  mass 
of  readers  failed  to  see  at  the  time,  and  even  yet 
imperfectly  appreciate.  This  purpose  was  to  tell, 
not  how  an  American  ought  to  feel  on  seeing  the 
sights  of  the  Old  World,  but  how  he  actually  does 

9 


130  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 


feel  if  he  is  honest  with  himself.  From  time  im- 
A  hater  of  memorial,  books  of  travel  had  been  written 
by  Americans  purporting  to  record  their 
experiences,  but  really  telling  only  what  the  writers 
thought  they  might,  could,  would,  or  should  have 
experienced.  This  is  a  very  familiar  type  of  the 
genus  globe-trotter;  specimens  of  it  are  seen  every 
where  in  Europe,  Murray  or  Baedeker  constantly 
in  hand  and  carefully  conned,  lest  they  dilate  with 
the  wrong  emotion  —  or,  what  is  almost  as  bad, 
fail  to  dilate  with  the  proper  emotion  at  the  right 
instant.  For  sham  sentiment,  sham  love  of  art, 
sham  adventures,  Mark  Twain  had  no  tolerance, 
and  he  gave  these  shams  no  quarter  in  his  book. 
"Cervantes  smiled  Spain's  chivalry  away"  is  a  fine 
phrase  of  Byron's,  which,  like  most  fine  phrases, 
is  not  true.  What  Cervantes  did  was  to  "smile 
away  "  the  ridiculous  romances  of  chivalry,  —  chiv 
alry  had  been  long  dead  in  his  day,  —  the  impos 
sible  tales  of  knightly  adventure,  outdoing  the 
deeds  of  the  doughty  Baron  Munchausen,  that  were 
produced  in  shoals  by  the  penny-a-liners  of  his 
time.  Not  since  this  feat  of  Cervantes  has  a 
wholesome  burst  of  merriment  cleared  the  air  more 
effectually  or  banished  a  greater  humbug  from  liter 
ature  than  when  "The  Innocents  Abroad  "  laughed 
away  the  sentimental,  the  romantic  book  of  travels. 
Mark  Twain,  perhaps,  erred  somewhat  on  the 
other  side.  His  bump  of  reverence  must  be  ad 
mitted  to  be  practically  non-existent;  and  while 


MARK  TWAIN.  131 


his  jests  about  the  saints  may  make  the  unskilful 
laugh,  the  judicious  grieve.  The  fact  seems  to  be 
that  he  sees  so  clearly  the  humbug  and  pretence 
and  superstition  beneath  things  conventionally  held 
to  be  sacred  that  he  sometimes  fails  to  see  that 
they  are  not  all  sham,  and  that  there  is  really 
something  sacred  there.  In  truth,  Mark  Twain 
has  been  slow  to  learn  that  "quips  and  cranks  and 
wanton  wiles "  are  not  always  in  good  taste. 
Throughout  the  book  the  author  was  just  Afrank 
a  little  too  hard-headed,  too  realistic,  too  philistlne- 
unimpressionable,  too  frankly  Philistine,  for  entire 
truthfulness  and  good  taste ;  but  it  may  have  seemed 
necessary  to  exaggerate  something  on  this  side  in 
order  to  furnish  an  antidote  to  mawkish  sentimen 
tality.  His  lesson  would  have  been  less  effective  if 
it  had  not  been  now  and  then  a  trifle  bitter  to  the 
taste.  Since  that  time  travellers  have  actually 
dared  to  tell  the  truth ;  or  shall  we  say  that  they 
have  been  afraid  to  scribble  lies  so  recklessly? 
Whichever  way  one  looks  at  the  matter,  there  is 
no  doubt  that  American  literature,  so  far  as  it  has 
dealt  with  Europe  and  things  European,  has  been 
more  natural,  wholesome,  and  self-respecting  since 
the  tour  of  this  shrewd  Innocent. 

The  same  earnestness  of  purpose  underlies  much 
else  that  Mark  Twain  has  written,  especially  "The 
Prince  and  the  Pauper,"  and  "A  Yankee  Two English 
at  King  Arthur's  Court."     The  careless    tales< 
reader  no  doubt  sees  nothing  in  the  first  of  these 


132  AMERICAN   WRITERS   OF   TO-DAY. 

books  but  a  capital  tale  for  boys.  He  cannot  help 
seeing  that,  for  it  is  a  story  of  absorbing  interest, 
accurate  in  its  historical  setting,  and  told  in  remark 
ably  good  English.  In  the  latter  book  he  will  no 
doubt  discover  nothing  more  than  rollicking  humor 
and  a  burlesque  of  "  Morte  d'  Arthur."  This  is  to 
see  only  what  lies  on  the  surface  of  these  volumes, 
without  comprehending  their  aim,  or  sympathizing 
with  the  spirit.  Not  the  old  prophet  of  Chelsea 
The  seamy  side  himself  was  a  more  inveterate  hater  of 

of  chivalry. 


of  the  glamour  of  chivalry  is  as  unreal  as  the 
tinsel  splendors  of  the  stage;  to  study  history  is 
like  going  behind  the  scenes  of  a  theatre,  a  disen 
chantment  as  thorough  as  it  is  speedy.  "  Morte 
d'  Arthur"  and  Tennyson's  "Idylls  of  the  King" 
present  to  the  unsophisticated  a  very  beautiful,  but 
a  very  shadowy  and  unsubstantial  picture  of  Britain 
thirteen  centuries  ago.  Even  in  these  romances 
a  glimpse  of  the  real  sordidness  and  squalor  and 
poverty  of  the  people  may  now  and  then  be  caught 
amid  all  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  chivalry, 
and  yet  nobody  has  had  the  pitiless  courage  here 
tofore  to  let  the  full  blaze  of  the  sun  into  these 
regions  where  the  lime-light  of  fancy  has  had  full 
sway,  that  we  might  see  what  the  berouged  heroes 
and  heroines  actually  are. 

But  Mark  Twain  has  one  quality  to  which  Carlyle 
never  attained;  joined  to  his  hatred  of  shams  is  a 
hearty  and  genuine  love  of  liberty.  His  books  could 


MARK  TWAIN.  133 


never  have  been  written  by  one  not  born  in  the 
United  States.  His  love  of  liberty  is  character 
istic  in  its  manifestation.  In  a  French-  A  lover  of 
man  it  would  have  found  vent  in  essays  hberty' 
on  the  text  of  liberte,  fraternity  tgalitt,  but  eloquent 
writing  about  abstractions  is  not  the  way  in  which 
an  American  finds  voice  for  his  sentiments.  Mark 
Twain's  love  of  liberty  is  shown  unostentatiously, 
incidentally  as  it  were,  in  his  sympathy  for,  and 
championship  of,  the  down-trodden  and  oppressed. 
He  says  to  us,  in  effect :  "  Here  you  have  been 
admiring  the  age  of  chivalry;  this  is  what  your 
King  Arthur,  your  spotless  Galahad,  your  valiant 
Launcelot  made  of  the  common  people.  Spending 
their  lives  in  the  righting  of  imaginary  wrongs, 
they  were  perpetuating  with  all  their  energy  a  sys 
tem  of  the  most  frightful  cruelty  and  oppression. 
Cease  admiring  these  heroes,  and  execrate  them  as 
they  deserve."  This,  to  be  sure,  is  a  one-sided 
view,  but  it  is  one  that  we  need  to  take  in  endeavor 
ing  to  comprehend  the  England  of  King  Arthur. 
There  is  no  danger  that  we  shall  overlook  the 
romantic  and  picturesque  view  while  Malory  and 
Tennyson  are  read,  but  it  is  wholesome  for  us  some 
times  to  feel  the  weight  of  misery  that  oppressed 
all  beneath  the  privileged  classes  in  England's  days 
of  chivalry.  No  books  are  better  fitted  to  help  a 
student  of  history  "orient  himself,"  as  the  French 
phrase  it,  than  these  two  of  Mark  Twain's. 


134  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 


III. 

EXCEPT   in  the   two  books  that   may  be   called 
historic    romances,    Mark  Twain   has    been    a  con 
sistent   realist.       He  was   probably  as   innocent  of 
intent  to   belong  to  the  realistic  school  when  he 
began  writing  as  Moliere's  old  gentleman 

K.6cilistn» 

had  all  his  life  been  of  the  intent  to  talk 
prose.  He  was  realistic  because  it  "came  sort  o' 
nateral  "  to  him,  as  a  Yankee  would  say.  His  first 
books  were  the  outcome  of  his  personal  experiences. 
These  were  many  and  varied,  for  few  men  have 
knocked  about  the  world  more,  or  viewed  life  from 
so  many  points.  Bret  Harte  has  written  of  life  on 
the  Pacific  coast  with  greater  appreciation  of  its 
romantic  and  picturesque  features,  but  one  suspects 
with  considerably  less  truthfulness  in  detail.  The 
shady  heroes  and  heroines  of  Bret  Harte's  tales  are 
of  a  quality  that  suggests  an  amalgam  of  Byron  and 
Smollett;  they  smack  strongly  of  Bowery  melo 
drama.  Mark  Twain's  "Roughing  It"  is  a  whole 
some  book,  and  as  accurate  in  its  details  as  a 
photograph,  but  there  is  nothing  romantic  or  thril 
ling  about  it. 

It  is  in  the  Mississippi  Valley,  however,  that  our 
author  finds  himself  most  at  home,  not  only  because 
his  knowledge  of  it  is  more  comprehensive  and 
minutely  accurate,  but  because  it  is  a  more  con 
genial  field.  Mark  Twain  understands  California, 


MARK  TWAIN.  135 


admires  it  even,  but  he  loves  the  great  river  and 
the  folk  who  dwell  alongside  it.  He  is  especially 
happy  in  his  delineation  of  the  boy  of  Understands 
this  region.  If  ever  any  writer  under-  theboy- 
stood  boy  nature  in  general,  from  A  to  izzard,  the 
name  of  that  writer  is  Mark  Twain.  He  has 
explored  all  its  depths  and  shallows,  and  in  his 
characters  of  Tom  Sawyer  and  Huckleberry  Finn 
he  has  given  us  such  a  study  of  the  American  boy 
as  will  be  sought  in  vain  elsewhere.  He  has  done 
more  than  this ;  he  has  given  us  a  faithful  picture, 
painfully  realistic  in  details,  of  the  ante  bellum 
social  condition  of  the  Mississippi  Valley.  This 
realism  redeems  the  books  from  what  would  other 
wise  seem  worthlessness,  and  gives  them  a  positive 
value. 

One  ought  also  to  recognize  the  great  merit  of 
this  writer's  short  stories.  Most  of  these  stories 
are  humorous  in  their  fundamental  conception,  or 
have  a  vein  of  humor  running  through  them,  but 
they  are  not,  for  the  most  part,  boisterously  funny. 
They  range  in  style  from  the  avowedly  His  short 
funny  tale  of  "  The  Jumping  Frog  of  Cale-  stories' 
veras"  to  the  surface  sobriety  of  "The  .£1,000,000 
Bank  Note."  In  the  composition  of  the  short  story, 
Mark  Twain  is  so  evidently  perfecting  his  art  as 
to  warrant  one  in  hazarding  the  prediction  that 
much  of  his  best  work  in  future  is  likely  to  be  done 
along  this  line. 


136  AMERICAN   WRITERS   OF  TO-DAY. 


IV. 

EVEN  our  English  cousins,  —  as  a  rule,  not  too 
lenient  in  their  judgments  of  kin  across  the  sea,  — 
admit  that  American  humor  has  a  distinct  flavor. 
Not  only  so,  they  also  admit  that  this  flavor  is 
delightful.  To  their  tastes  there  is  something  wild 
and  gamy  about  American  humor,  a  tang  that  is 
both  a  new  sensation  and  a  continuous  source  of 
English  appre-  enjoyment.  British  commendation  of 
ciauon.  American  humor,  however,  is  not  always 

as  discriminating  as  it  is  hearty.  We  must  allow 
Englishmen  the  praise  of  having  been  prompt  to 
appreciate  Artemus  Ward  the  only;  but  of  late 
years  they  seem  impervious  to  American  humor, 
except  of  one  type  —  that  which  depends  for  its 
effect  on  exaggeration.  Exaggeration  is,  no  doubt, 
one  legitimate  species  of  humor.  The  essence  of 
humor  lies  in  the  perception  of  incongruity,  and 
the  effect  of  incongruity  may  be  produced  by  exag 
geration.  This  is  the  more  effectively  done  if  the 
style  is  dry;  the  writer  must  give  no  sign,  until 
the  very  end  (if  even  there)  that  he  does  not  take 
himself  seriously.  The  narrator  must  not  by  a  tone 
of  voice  or  change  of  facial  expression  betray  any 
lack  of  exact  veracity  in  his  tale,  or  the  effect  is 
measurably  lost.  Mark  Twain  has  frequently  shown 
himself  to  be  master  of  this  style  of  humor.  He 
can  invent  the  most  tremendous  absurdities,  and 


MARK  TWAIN.  137 


tell  them  with  such  an  air  of  seriousness  as  must 
frequently  deceive  the  unwary. 

But  this  is  not,  as  English  readers  mistakenly 
imagine,  the  best  type  of  American  humor;  it  is 
not  even  the  type  in  which  Mark  Twain 

Cheap  humor. 

reaches  his  highest  level.  Exaggeration 
is  comparatively  cheap  humor.  Anybody  can  lie, 
and  the  kind  of  Mark  Twain's  humor  most  admired 
abroad  is  simply  the  lie  of  circumstance  minus  the 
intent  to  deceive.  It  is  morally  innocuous,  there 
fore,  but  it  is  bad  art.  No  doubt  it  is  frequently 
successful  in  provoking  laughter,  but  the  quality 
of  humor  is  not  to  be  gauged  by  the  loudness  of 
the  hearers'  guffaws.  The  most  delightful  fun  is 
that  which  at  most  provokes  no  more  than  a  quiet 
smile,  but  is  susceptible  of  repeated  enjoyment 
when  the  most  hilarious  joke  is  received  in  a  grim 
silence  more  expressive  than  words.  To  borrow  a 
metaphor  from  science,  humor  is  the  electricity  of 
literature,  but  in  its  finest  manifestation  it  is  not 
static  but  dynamic.  The  permanent  charm  of 
humorous  writing  is  generally  in  inverse  ratio  to 
its  power  to  incite  boisterous  merriment  when  first 
read.  The  joker  who  at  first  gives  one  a  pain  in 
the  side  soon  induces  "that  tired  feeling"  which  is 
fatal  to  continued  interest.  It  is  Mark  Twain's 
misfortune  at  present  to  be  appreciated  abroad 
mainly  for  that  which  is  ephemeral  in  his  writ 
ings.  His  broad  humanity,  his  gift  of  seeing  far 
below  the  surface  of  life,  his  subtle  comprehension 


138  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

of  human  nature,  and  his  realistic  method,  are  but 
dimly  apprehended  by  those  Britons  who  go  off  in 
convulsions  of  laughter  the  moment  his  name  is 
mentioned.  It  is  probably  in  vain  for  us  to  pro 
test  against  this  misjudgment  of  American  authors 
by  Britons — • 

"  Against  stupidity  the  very  gods 
Themselves  contend  in  vain." 

A  false  standard  of  what  is  truly  "American" 
has  been  set  up  abroad,  and  only  what  conforms  to 
that  standard  wins  admiration.  For  that  reason 
British  readers  have  gone  wild  over  Bret  Harte  and 
Joaquin  Miller,  while  they  neglected  Bryant  and 
Holmes,  and  for  a  time  even  Lowell,  on  the  ground 
that  the  latter  were  "really  more  English  than 
American,  you  know."  Their  own  countrymen 
have  a  juster  notion  of  the  relative  standing  of 
American  authors.  In  the  case  of  Mark  Twain 
they  do  not  believe  that  he  is  rated  too  high  by 
foreign  critics  and  readers,  but  that  his  true  merits 
are  very  imperfectly  comprehended. 


V. 

MR.  CLEMENS  has  forever  silenced  those  who  affirm 
that  a  successful  author,  or  at  any  rate  a  man  of 
genius,  must  necessarily  be  a  fool  in  business.  No 
reader  of  his  books  needed  to  be  assured  that  he  is  a 
man  of  much  shrewdness,  alert  in  observation,  and 


MARK  TWAIN.  139 


understanding  what  he  sees.  These  are  qualities  that 
make  the  successful  man  of  affairs,  and  as  a  man  of 
affairs  he  has  been  even  more  successful  than  as  a 
writer.  From  the  publication  of  his  "  Innocents 
Abroad  "  Mr.  Clemens  found  himself  in  the  fortunate 
position  of  an  author  sure  of  his  audience.  Business 
He  had  only  to  write  and  publishers  would  sagacity- 
stand  ready  to  bid  against  each  other  for  his  manu 
script,  and  the  public  were  equally  eager  for  the 
opportunity  to  buy  the  book.  Whether  by  good 
fortune  or  by  design,  the  Innocents  fell  into  the  hands 
of  a  firm  that  sells  books  by  subscription  only.  This 
is  undoubtedly  the  most  profitable  method  of  publish 
ing  books  for  which  there  is  a  certain,  a  large,  and  an 
immediate  sale.  It  did  not'  take  so  shrewd  a  man 
long  to  discover  that  large  as  his  profits  were  from 
the  phenomenal  sale  of  his  books,  the  publisher 
reaped  an  even  larger  harvest  of  dollars.  It  took  not 
much  longer  for  Mr.  Clemens  to  ask  himself  why  he 
should  not  be  both  publisher  and  author,  and  take  to 
himself  both  profits.  With  a  man  like  him,  to  think 
is  to  plan,  and  to  plan  is  to  execute.  And  though  his 
publishing  venture  has  proved  on  the  whole  an  unfor 
tunate  one,  this  result  is  not  due  to  Mr.  Clemens. 
Had  he  given  more  of  his  personal  attention  to  the 
business,  the  outcome  would  have  been  different, 
beyond  a  reasonable  doubt. 

In  private  life  Mr.  Clemens  is  reputed  to  be  one  of 
the  most  genial  and  companionable  of  men.  After 
all,  the  best  humor,  and  the  rarest,  is  good  humor, 


I4O  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

and  of  this  Mark  Twain  has  an  inexhaustible  stock. 
His  friends  say  that  he  has  never  done  himself  justice 
as  a  humorist  in  his  books ;  he  produces  his  master 
pieces  over  a  cigar  with  a  few  choice  spirits.  Pity  it 
is,  if  this  be  true,  that  there  is  not  a  chiel  amang  them 
to  take  notes  and  prent  'em. 


VIII. 
FRANCIS   MARION   CRAWFORD. 

BOSWELL  tells  us  that  when  an  English  poet, 
whose  very  name  nobody  now  recalls,  wrote 
in  a  heroic  poem  — 

"  Who  rules  o'er  freemen  should  himself  be  free," 

bluff  old  Sam  Johnson  mercilessly  parodied  the  line 

into  — 

"  Who  drives  fat  oxen  should  himself  be  fat." 

One  hesitates  to  provoke  a  like  fate  by  declaring  that 
the  writer  of  romances  should  himself  have  led  a 
romantic  life,  but  a  certain  subtle  fitness  of  things  may 
be  acknowledged  when  such  is  the  case.  No  writer 
of  our  day  has  a  history  of  so  varied  adventure,  so 
checkered  experience,  so  sudden  fame,  as  this  Ameri 
can  who  was  not  born  in  America,  and  has  lived  fewer 
of  his  adult  years  in  his  own  country  than  he  has  spent 
in  almost  any  nook  of  Europe  or  Asia. 

Dates  are  stubborn  things,  but  when  one  looks  over 
the  long  row  of  volumes  written  by  Mr.  Crawford 
one  finds  it  hard  to  realize  that  he  was  born  at  Bagni 
di  Lucca,  Italy,  in  1853,  and  is  therefore  barely  on 
the  shady  side  of  forty.  He  is  the  son  of  Thomas 


142  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

Crawford,  America's  most  original  sculptor, — who, 
though  born  in  New  York  City,  was  of  pure  Irish 
Bmh  and  descent.  His  mother  was  a  daughter  of 
lineage.  Samuel  Ward,  a  New  York  banker,  and  a 

sister  of  Mrs.  Julia  Ward  Howe  and  of  genial  "  Uncle 
Sam  "  Ward,  the  favorite  of  Boston  and  Washington 
society.  This  mixture  of  Irish  and  Yankee  blood,  of 
artistic  and  practical  temperaments,  may  be  traced 
without  too  much  fancifulness  in  all  of  Mr.  Crawford's 
career,  as  well  as  in  the  lineaments  of  that  counterfeit 
presentment  with  which  his  publishers  have  favored 
us.  It  is  a  frank,  genial,  manly  face  that  looks  out  at 
us  from  this  picture,  suggesting  an  athletic  frame  and 
a  capacity  for  the  fullest  enjoyment  of  the  good  things 
of  life,  while  it  also  implies  mental  power  and  a  domi 
nant  ideality.  It  is  not  the  face  of  a  mere  dreamer, 
still  less  of  a  sensualist,  but  that  of  a  well-rounded, 
well-balanced  man,  in  whom  mind  and  spirit  dominate 
body. 

After  the  premature  death  of  Thomas  Crawford,  the 
widowed  mother  and  the  young  lad  returned  to  this 
country,  and  made  New  York  their  home.  Young 
Crawford's  education  was  begun,  but  he  himself  con 
fesses  to  his  friends  that  the  school  —  in  the  neigh 
borhood  of  Union  Square — had  for  him  less 
attractions  than  the  circuses  that  were  then  wont  to 
make  that  locality  their  headquarters.  In  course  of 
time  he  picked  up  enough  learning  to  enter  Harvard, 
but  did  not  complete  his  course.  In  the  early  seven 
ties  he  was  a  student  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge ; 


FRANCIS  MARION  CRAWFORD.  143 

later  he  spent  two  years  at  Karlsruhe  and  Heidelberg, 
and  a  final  two  years  at  the  University  ot  Rome,  where 
he  devoted  himself  especially  to  Sanskrit.  While  he 
was  still  not  far  advanced  in  his  twenties,  the  financial 
disasters  following  the  panic  of  1873  Romant;c 
wrecked  the  ample  fortune  his  mother  had  career> 
inherited  from  her  banker-father,  and  the  young  man 
was  unexpectedly  thrown  on  his  own  resources.  It 
was  a  severe  test  of  both  character  and  ability,  but 
both  bore  the  test  well.  To  a  young  man  of  desultory 
education,  literary  tastes,  and  pressing  necessities, 
journalism  offers  irresistible  attractions.  To  this  pro 
fession  Mr.  Crawford  at  once  turned,  and  after  devious 
wanderings  he  became  a  member  of  the  editorial  staff 
of  the  "  Indian  Herald,"  of  Allahabad.  His  knowledge 
of  Sanskrit  stood  him  in  good  stead  during  this  Indian 
episode,  of  which  he  has  since  made  excellent  use  in 
"  Mr.  Isaacs  "  and  "  Zoroaster."  We  are  told  that  his 
cue,  as  an  Indian  editor,  was  to  write  down  Madame 
Blavatsky,  theosophy  and  kindred  subjects ;  which  is 
rather  amusing  when  one  remembers  that  his  first 
essay  in  fiction  was  in  this  very  realm  of  the  marvel 
lous  and  unknown  that  as  a  journalist  he  treated  so 
lightly.  The  last  ten  years  Mr.  Crawford  has  spent  in 
Italy,  with  occasional  visits  to  this  country,  his  home 
being  a  beautiful  spot  near  Sorrento.  In  these  facts 
of  his  history  we  find  the  key  to  his  marked  success 
as  a  novelist,  as  well  as  the  sufficient  explanation  of 
his  limitations. 


144  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 


MR.  CRAWFORD  may  be  said  to  have  stumbled  upon, 
rather  than  to  have  chosen,  his  career.  After  he  had 
tired  of  Indian  journalism,  and  had  come  to  this 
country  in  search  of  some  better  occupation,  he  was 
one  day  spinning  yarns  about  India  to  his  uncle,  Sam 
Ward.  Mr.  Ward  was  a  man  of  some  literary  ability, 
and  of  much  business  shrewdness;  in  one  of  these 
yarns  he  saw  literary  possibilities,  and  he  advised  his 
nephew  to  write  it  out  at  length  and  submit  it  to  a 
publisher.  Such  was  the  origin  of  "  Mr.  Isaacs,"  — 
for  the  nephew  had,  in  this  case,  sense  enough  to  take 
a  bit  of  avuncular  good  advice.  The  success  of  the 
book  was  immediate  and  gratifying.  It 
was  also  well  deserved,  for,  though  "  Mr. 
Isaacs"  is  crude,  it  is  a  book  of  great  promise.  There 
was  a  freshness  in  the  subject,  —  Mr.  Kipling  had  not 
then  been  heard  from,  —  and  an  attractiveness  about 
the  mysterious  hero,  that  atoned  for  defects  obviously 
due  to  inexperience  in  story-writing.  It  was  believed 
by  those  who  read  the  book  that  the  author  would 
soon  obtain  the  technical  mastery  of  his  art ;  and  that 
his  native  gifts,  when  matured  and  developed,  would 
give  him  a  high  place  on  the  roll  of  American  novel 
ists.  This  hope  has  not  been  disappointed,  though  at 
times  its  entire  fulfilment  has  seemed  improbable. 

Mr.  Crawford  has  been  astonishingly  prolific.    Since 
the  appearance  of  his  first   story,  in    1882,  he   has 


FRANCIS  MARION  CRAWFORD.  145 

written  and  published  no  fewer  than  twenty-three  other 
volumes,  most  of  them  of  full  average  novel  size,  and 
has  others  in  manuscript.  This  is  about  a  book  and 
a  half  a  year,  a  rate  of  production  that  in  any  case 
entitles  him  to  be  reckoned  one  of  the  most  industrious 
of  modern  writers.  His  composition  is  almost  incred 
ibly  rapid  when  he  once  begins  a  story  in  good 
earnest.  He  must,  of  course,  have  it  mapped  Astonishingly 
out  completely,  so  that  nothing  remains  Prohfic- 
but  the  actual  work  of  clothing  his  conception  in 
words.  Then  he  has  been  known  to  compose  a  com 
plete  novel  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  words 
in  twenty-five  consecutive  working  days,  broken  only 
by  the  intervening  Sundays.  This  is  an  average  of 
six  thousand  words  a  day,  all  written  with  his  own 
hand,  without  aid  of  amanuensis,  stenographer,  or 
typewriter.  Let  anybody  sit  down  some  day  and 
copy  six  thousand  words ;  he  will  find  that  the  mere 
physical  labor  constitutes  an  exhausting  day's  work. 
Let  him  keep  this  up  day  after  day  for  a  month,  then 
let  him  add  thereto  in  imagination  the  mental  strain 
of  original  composition,  and  he  will  have  some 
conception  of  the  stupendous  nature  of  the  feat 
accomplished  by  Mr.  Crawford.  Most  literary  workers 
occasionally  write  as  many  as  six  thousand  words  in 
a  day,  as  a  sort  of  tour  de  force,  but  this  is  one  of  those 
things  that  we  look  back  upon  as  matter  of  just  pride. 
Who  of  us  ever  dreams  of  keeping  this  up  for  any 
number  of  consecutive  days? 

10 


146  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 


II. 

IT  is  not  enough,  however,  that  an  author  be  indus 
trious  ;  we  also  demand  that  what  he  does  shall  be 
worth  doing,  and  shall  be  done  with  intelligent  pur 
pose.  The  late  excellent  Anthony  Trollope  to  the 
Gemus  wanted  contrary  notwithstanding,  a  big  piece  of 
shoemaker's-wax  on  the  seat  of  one's  chair 
is  not  the  chief  condition  of  success  as  a  writer  of 
fiction.  It  is  important  first  of  all  that  an  author 
have  something  to  say,  something  worth  saying,  and 
that  he  know  how  to  say  it ;  that  granted,  the  wax 
may  be  very  useful  in  getting  it  said,  but  that  lacking, 
all  the  diligent  labor  in  the  world  will  result  in  quires 
of  nothings,  nothing  worth.  "  Cudgel  thy  brains  no 
more  about  it,"  says  the  grave-digger  in  "  Hamlet," 
"  for  your  dull  ass  will  not  mend  his  pace  with  beating." 
If  Mr.  Crawford's  books  do  not  show  genius,  they  at 
least  show  a  cleverness  that  cannot  be  expressed  in 
units  of  labor.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  case  in 
the  beginning,  his  later  stories  show  the  touch  of  the 
conscious  artist,  and  we  shall  do  well  to  consider  the 
theory  on  which  he  avowedly  works. 

For  himself,  he  declines  to  be  classified  either  as 
realist  or  romancer,  since,  in  his  view,  a  good  novel 
should  combine  romance  and  reality  in  just  propor- 
Neither  realist  tions,  and  neither  element  need  shut  out 
noi  romancer.  the  Qthen  Every-day  life  would  be  a 

very  dull  affair  without  something  of  romance,  and 


FRANCIS  MARION   CRAWFORD.  147 

decidedly  incoherent  without  reality ;  so  that  the  novel 
that  excludes  either  cannot  be  a  true  representation 
of  life.  Mr.  Crawford's  artistic  creed  is  not  complex : 
the  novel  must  deal  chiefly  with  love,  a  passion  in 
which  all  men  and  women  are  interested ;  it  must  be 
clean  and  sweet,  since  its  tale  is  for  all  mankind  ;  it  must 
be  interesting;  its  realism  must  be  of  three  dimen 
sions,  not  flat  and  photographic;  its  romance  must 
be  truly  human.  What  he  tries  to  do  is  to  "  make 
little  pocket-theatres  out  of  words."  In  short,  to  his 
mind  fiction  is  intimately  allied  to  the  HIS  artistic 
drama  —  if,  indeed,  these  are  not  essen-  c 
tially  one  art,  applied  to  different  conditions  of 
expression.  To  criticise  this  theory  of  fiction  would 
lead  us  too  far  afield,  and  might  be  unprofitable  in 
any  event;  what  concerns  our  present  purpose  far 
more  than  its  truth  is  the  inquiry,  How  successful 
and  how  consistent  has  been  the  application  of  this 
theory  to  the  actual  work  of  novel-writing? 


III. 


MR.  CRAWFORD'S  stories  may  be  classified  as  novels 
and  romances.  A  "  novel "  may  be  defined  as  a  more 
or  less  realistic  fiction,  a  serious  attempt  to  represent 
life  as  it  is.  By  "  romance  "  one  understands  a  tale 
in  which  the  illusion  of  probability  is  for  the  most 
part  successfully  maintained,  while  the  story  yet  con 
tains  elements  or  incidents  that  on  sober  reflection  one 
decides  to  be,  if  not  contrary  to  fact,  yet  transcending 


148  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

all  ordinary  experience  and  setting  the  probabilities 
Crawford's       quite  at  defiance.      Stories  whose   leading 

romances.  .  .  .  .   .     _    . 

motive  or  turning  point  or  chief  interest 
depends  upon  something  marvellous,  mysterious, 
beyond  ordinary  human  knowledge,  not  to  say  dis 
tinctly  supernatural,  are  romances.  To  illustrate  by 
reference  to  models  now  classic  in  the  literature  of 
fiction,  Hawthorne  is  the  typical  romancer,  while 
Thackeray  is  the  typical  novelist.  Mr.  Crawford  has 
tried  his  hand  at  both  species  of  fiction,  not  once  but 
many  times.  In  "  Mr.  Isaacs"  he  makes  free  use  of 
the  marvels  of  Oriental  theosophy,  treating  seriously 
for  the  purposes  of  his  art  that  which  as  a  journalist 
he  had  made  the  butt  of  numberless  flouts  and  gibes 
and  jeers.  In  "  The  Witch  of  Prague  "  the  plot  turns 
on  the  latest  theories  of  hypnotism  and  the  far-reaching 
possibilities  of  a  new  psychological  science.  These 
are  the  most  conspicuous  instances,  and  the  most 
successful  by  far,  of  an  ability  to  construct  a  powerful 
and  interesting  story  out  of  materials  which  in  the 
hands  of  a  less  skilful  writer  would  have  produced 
only  an  effect  of  grotesqnerie  or  something  much  worse. 
It  is  a  short  step  from  the  impressive  and  the  thrilling 
to  the  ridiculous,  and  nothing  is  more  fatal  than  to 
produce  an  effect  of  burlesque  when  one  would  be 
tragic.  Mr.  Crawford  somehow  compels  us  to  take 
his  marvels  seriously  while  we  are  reading  them, 
however  we  may  scout  them  when  we  lay  the  book 
down,  because  he  seems  to  take  them  with  so  tremen 
dous  seriousness  himself.  There  is  none  of  that 


FRANCIS  MARION   CRAWFORD.  149 

cynical  by-play  of  Thackeray's,  in  which  we  are  now 
and  again  informed  that  we  are  only  gazing  on  a 
puppet-show,  not  at  life  itself;  no  prestidigitateur 
ever  kept  up  the  illusion  better,  or  more  gravely  pre 
tended  to  his  audience  that  his  feats  are  the  result, 
not  of  manual  dexterity,  but  of  mysterious  powers 
with  which  he  has  been  in  some  extraordinary  way 
endowed. 

These  romances  are  clever,  perhaps  they  exhibit 
Mr.  Crawford's  cleverness  at  its  best ;  for,  surely,  the 
more  intrinsically  improbable  a  tale  is,  the  greater 
the  skill  of  the  story-teller  who  persuades 

His  novels. 

us  to  accept  it  as  real,  even  during  the 
telling  of  it.  Still,  one  may  confess  to  a  juster  appre 
ciation  and  a  higher  enjoyment  of  the  novels  in  which 
only  ordinary  men  and  women  appear,  whose  plots 
violate  no  man's  notion  of  the  probable,  but  adjust 
themselves  readily  to  the  experience  of  life  each 
reader  has  gained.  Some  one  has  said  of  this  work 
of  Mr.  Crawford's  that  it  includes  the  best  and  the 
worst  novel  ever  written  by  an  American,  —  meaning 
by  the  best  "  Saracinesca,"  and  by  the  worst  "  An 
American  Politician."  More  readers  will,  perhaps, 
subscribe  to  the  latter  half  of  this  saying  than  to  the 
former.  There  have  been,  possibly,  a  few  worse  books 
than  this  story  of  American  political  life,  —  one  does 
not  care  to  inquire  too  curiously  about  that ;  but  if  so 
they  must  be  very  bad.  The  truth  is,  that  in  writing 
this  story  the  novelist  ventured  out  of  his  depth.  No 
amount  of  cleverness  can  supply  the  place  of  knowl- 


I5O  AMERICAN  WRITERS   OF   TO-DAY. 

edge,  and  Mr.  Crawford  does  not  know  his  own 
country  and  its  ways.  How,  indeed,  should  he?  He 
has  never  lived  here,  —  for  any  length  of  time,  that  is 
*o  say,  —  and  he  knows  his  countrymen  only  in  a 
superficial,  which  is  always  a  false,  way.  In  "  The 
Three  Fates  "  he  made  a  second  venture  in 

Two  failures. 

this  field,  and  again  failed,  —  not  quite  so 
disastrously  as  before,  it  is  true,  but  still  failed.  To 
be  sure,  the  book  was  praised  by  a  critic  of  some 
pretensions,  as  a  felicitous  picture  of  New  York  life. 
Mr.  Crawford's  New  York  friends  should  beseech  him 
not  to  lay  that  flattering  unction  to  his  soul.  It  is  not 
a  picture  of  New  York  life,  though  as  a  travesty  it 
may  be  allowed  to  be  not  without  merit.  But  the 
author  did  not  set  out  to  write  a  travesty ;  he  aimed 
at  portraiture.  He  did  not  succeed;  he  never  will 
succeed  until  he  knows  America  and  things  American 
as  he  knows  Rome  and  the  Romans.  He  is  still  a 
young  man,  and  has  ample  time  to  make  the  acquain 
tance  of  his  countrymen.  Let  us  hope  that  he  will 
do  so,  and  that  he  will  then  give  us  such  studies  of 
life  in  New  York  and  Boston  as  he  has  given  us  of  life 
in  Rome.  One  is  encouraged  in  this  hope  by  a  remark 
that  he  is  credited  with  having  lately  made :  "  I  think 
there  is  a  richer  field  for  the  novelist  in  the  Urited 
States  than  in  Europe.  There  are  more  original 
characters  to  be  found  here,  and  they  are  in  greater 
variety. " 

Mr.    Crawford's    Romans   are   convincing   to   one 
who  knows   nothing  whatever   about   Rome,   which 


FRANCIS  MARION  CRAWFORD.  151 

means  all  but  a  few  score  of  Americans.  No  trav 
eller,  not  even  one  who  spends  months  in  Rome,  can 
know  enough  about  the  city  to  say  with  Knows  his 
authority  that  these  books  are  or  are  not  Rome' 
true  to  the  life.  To  say  that,  one  must  know  the 
city  like  a  native.  He  must  have  the  entree  to  the 
most  exclusive  society;  he  must  have  the  personal 
confidence  of  people  with  whom  most  Americans 
never  get  so  far  as  to  exchange  a  word ;  he  must 
know  their  family  life,  their  pleasures,  their  preju 
dices,  their  very  souls,  in  a  word.  For  the  acquiring 
of  this  knowledge  Mr.  Crawford  had  one  qualification 
that  is  rare  among  American  dwellers  in  Rome; 
though  of  Protestant  parentage,  sometime  during 
his  wanderings  about  the  world  he  embraced  the 
Roman  Catholic  religion,  and  is  a  devout  son  of 
the  Church.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  no 
Protestant  will  ever  be  admitted  to  the  intimate  as 
sociation  with  great  Roman  families  that  is  apparent 
on  every  page  of  his  three  greatest  novels. 

One  risks  no  contradiction  in  applying  this  term 
to  "  Saracinesca,"  "  Sant'  Ilario,"  and  "  Don  Orsino," 
—  a  trio  of  stories  that  no  American  novelist  can  be 
fairly  said  to  have  surpassed.  One  is  almost  inclined, 
in  view  of  these  three  books,  to  modify  a  An  unsurpassed 
little  the  opinion  expressed  concerning  Mr.  tr10' 
Howells,  that  he  is  easily  the  first  of  American  nove 
lists.  First,  he  is,  on  the  whole,  beyond  doubt,  but 
not  quite  "easily;"  it  is  no  case  of  "  Eclipse  is  first 
and  the  rest  are  nowhere,"  for,  by  virtue  of  these 


152  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

three  books,  Mr.  Crawford  is  an  uncommonly  good 
second.  And  the  elder  novelist  is  first  rather  be 
cause  of  the  sustained  excellence  of  his  writings  than 
because  he  has  risen  to  any  higher  level.  Mr.  How- 
ells  has  written  no  novel  that  one  would  be  willing  to 
say  is  better  than  "  Saracinesca,"  but  Mr.  Crawford 
has  written  many  that  are  worse. 

These  three  books  are  the  history  of  a  patrician 
family  of  modern  Rome,  and  together  form  a  single 
story.  The  history  begins  with  the  Rome  of  '65  and 
ends  about  the  year  1888,  with  a  possibility  of  further 
development  hereafter.  Mr.  Crawford  is  evidently 
Thesarad-  fond  of  Don  Orsino,  has  taken  immense 
nescas.  pains  with  his  portraiture,  and  can  hardly 

have  taken  leave  of  him  for  good.  The  young  man 
is  little  more  than  twenty-one;  he  has  just  escaped 
ruin  in  those  great  building  speculations  after  which 
Rome  went  mad  for  a  time  ;  he  has  just  passed  through 
his  first  grand  passion,  —  he  is,  in  fine,  far  too  inter 
esting  a  personage,  and  his  future  contains  too  many 
delightful  possibilities,  for  his  creator  to  abandon 
him.  In  the  mean  time,  some  of  us  find  his  family 
even  more  delightful.  The  old  Prince  Saracinesca 
is  positively  delicious,  and  Corona,  his  daughter-in- 
law,  is  charming.  It  is  among  the  highest  society 
that  the  reader  moves  in  these  books ;  for  the  time 
being  he  lives  in  great  palaces,  he  assists  at  Embassy 
balls  and  other  high  "  functions,"  he  becomes  a  spec 
tator  at  a  duel  between  a  prince  and  a  count,  he  is 
admitted  to  a  private  audience  with  Cardinal  Anto- 


FRANCIS  MARION  CRAWFORD.  153 

nelli,  he  even  has  a  glimpse  of  a  revolution  from  the 
patrician  point  of  view.  When  one  comes  to  review 
the  acquaintances  he  has  made  he  finds  among  them 
all  but  two  untitled  men,  —  one  a  painter,  the  other 
an  architect ;  and  the  latter  exists  only  to  shield  the 
name  of  his  patrician  partner  from  public  view.  And 
one  can  think  of  no  higher  praise  to  bestow  on  Mr. 
Crawford  than  to  say  that  in  all  this  he  escapes  the 
faintest  taint  of  snobbery.  Every  reader  of  fiction 
will  recall  Lord  Beaconsfield's  "Lothair,"  and  perhaps 
will  remember  even  better  Bret  Harte's  clever  trav 
esty  of  it  in  his  "Condensed  Novels."  Beaconsfield,8 
Lord  Beaconsfield  also  deals  almost  ex-  Lothair- 
clusively  with  dukes  and  earls  and  countesses,  but  in 
a  way  to  suggest  ignorance  of  the  great  people  he 
described.  His  tawdry  magnificence  first  amuses 
and  finally  disgusts  the  judicious  reader.  Mr.  Craw 
ford's  is  the  antipodes  of  this  style  of  writing.  He 
chooses  to  write  of  princes,  it  is  true,  and  of  sur 
roundings  befitting  their  rank  and  wealth,  but  he 
describes  them  simply  and  easily,  as  if  he  had  been 
familiar  with  them  from  his  earliest  years.  And  when 
he  chooses  he  writes  of  other  orders  of  Roman 
society  with  equal  simplicity  and  fidelity. 

IV. 

MR.  CRAWFORD  avows  that  the  ideal  novel  must 
be  clean  and  sweet,  if  it  is  to  tell  its  story  to  all 
mankind.  This  is  the  only  manly  creed,  yet  he 


154  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

avows  it  somewhat  shamefacedly  and  with  an  ap 
parent  longing  that  it  might  be  otherwise.  We  are, 
The  school-girl  ^e  says,  men  and  women,  and  we  have  the 
thoughts  of  men  and  women,  and  not  of 
school-girls;  yet  the  school-girl  practically  decides 
what  we  are  to  hear  at  the  theatre,  and,  so  far  as  our 
language  is  concerned,  determines  to  a  great  extent 
what  we  are  to  read.  It  is  well  for  us  all  that  Mr. 
Crawford  has  the  school-girl  usually  in  his  mind's  eye, 
if  his  "  To  Leeward  "  is  a  sample  of  what  we  may 
expect  from  our  American  novelists  when  they  lose 
sight  of  the  school-girl.  It  is  very  thin  ice,  indeed, 
that  he  skates  over  in  this  book,  and  the  reader  is 
relieved  at  the  end  to  find  that  he  has  not  broken 
through  into  a  very  slough  of  vileness.  With  this 
single  exception  Mr.  Crawford's  books  may  be  safely 
commended  virginibus  puerisque. 

After  all,  is  there  not  a  good  deal  of  humbug  in. 
that  complaint  of  Thackeray's,  echoed  now  and  then 
by  other  novelists,  that  nobody  nowadays  dares  to 
paint  a  man?  —  meaning,  of  course,  a  rake.  The 
English  and  American  tradition  of  decency  is  less  of 
a  restraint  on  the  art  of  fiction  than  the  French  tradi 
tion  of  indecency.  And  the  French  novelist  has  the 
excuse  of  a  sort  of  necessity,  while  the  English  or 
American  writer  who  is  indecent  is  guilty  of  gratui- 
indecencyof  tous  wallowing  in  filth.  How  does  one 

French  fiction.     justjfy     thjs     hard     saying?          ft     Js     a     VCry 

simple  matter,  and  may  be  done  in  the  squeezing  of 
a  lemon.     The  novel,  as  Mr.  Crawford  tells  us,  must 


FRANCIS  MARION  CRAWFORD.  155 

deal  mainly  with  the  passion  of  love.  The  inter 
course  of  English  and  American  youths  of  both 
sexes  is  practically  unrestrained,  and  their  marriages 
are  commonly  preceded  by  a  somewhat  prolonged 
courtship  and  are  founded  on  affection.  Here  is  the 
amplest  material  for  the  art  of  the  novelist.  In 
French  society,  on  the  contrary,  girls  are  brought 
up  in  the  strictest  seclusion,  and  marriages  are  ar 
ranged  by  parents  on  a  purely  business  basis.  It 
may  be  true  that  these  marriages  turn  out  quite  as 
well  as  those  of  England  or  America,  —  the  revela 
tions  of  our  divorce  courts  strongly  confirm  those 
who  so  assert,  —  but  it  is  evident  that  there  is  no 
material  for  romance  in  the  French  pre-matrimonial 
customs.  The  only  passion  of  love  from  which  the 
French  novelist  can  extract  dramatic  situations  and 
thrilling  interest  is  a  guilty  passion,  and  this  is  why 
French  fiction  represents  the  breach  of  the  Abaseless 
seventh  commandment  as  more  honored  plamt> 
than  its  observance.  The  English  and  American 
novelists  have  the  advantage  every  way,  and  they 
speak  to  deaf  ears  when  they  ask  our  sympathy 
because  of  the  hard  condition  under  which  they 
work,  of  showing  some  respect  for  the  laws  of  God 
and  the  decencies  of  life.  Mr.  Crawford's  instinct  is 
better  than  his  theory  in  regard  to  the  dominance 
of  the  school-girl  in  fiction. 

The  author  of  "  Saracinesca"  is  one  of  the  few 
living  American  writers  who  have  a  European  repu 
tation  equal  to  their  standing  at  home.  His  books 


156  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

have  been  translated  into  most  of  the  languages  of 
Europe,  for  the  most  part  without  his  consent  or 
A  polyglot  profit.  Being  a  polyglot  himself,  and 
wnter-  speaking  several  languages  as  fluently 

as  his  own,  he  has  accomplished  one  feat  never 
paralleled  by  an  American.  His  "Zoroaster"  and 
"  Marzio's  Crucifix"  he  wrote  in  French  as  well  as 
in  English ;  and  in  recognition  of  their  especial  merit, 
and  of  the  worth  of  his  books  in  general,  the  French 
Academy  a  few  years  ago  awarded  him  a  prize  of 
one  thousand  francs,  —  an  honor  as  unique  as  it  was 
well  merited. 

Mr.  Crawford  has  not  yet  reached  the  maturity  of 
his  powers,  and  we  may  fairly  expect  him  to  do  much 
better  work  than  he  has  yet  done.  His  progress  in 
art  has  been  marked,  and  the  past  three  years  es 
pecially  have  shown  a  great  advance  over  what  he 
has  done  before.  He  produces  at  a  rate  that  would 

His  future.  ke  ruinous  to  one  of  less  fertile  mind  and 
vigorous  frame,  but  though  his  writing 
sometimes  shows  marks  of  haste,  it  is  never  raw 
and  crude.  He  takes  time  to  work  out  his  concep 
tions  thoroughly  before  he  puts  pen  to  paper,  and 
where  that  is  done  comparative  rates  of  composi 
tion  are  rather  significant  of  idiosyncrasies  of  char 
acter  than  tests  of  relative  excellence.  The  best 
work  is  not  infrequently  done  at  furious  speed,  while 
that  over  which  toilful  hours  are  spent  has  often  not 
life  enough  in  it  to  save  it  from  putrefaction.  Still, 


FRANCIS  MARION  CRAWFORD.  157 

Mr.  Crawford's  books  lack  the  perfection  of  form 
that  seldom  is  reached  without  long  and  loving  labor. 
Let  us  hope  that  he  may  yet  learn  Michelangelo's 
secret  that  trifles  make  perfection,  though  perfection 
is  no  trifle.  He  is  a  man  of  genius,  beyond  question, 
and  he  has  but  to  continue  the  progress  he  has 
already  made  to  produce  work  that  the  world  will 
never  willingly  let  die. 


IX. 

FRANCES  HODGSON  BURNETT. 

HAVE  we,  then,  no  women  who  are  worthy  of 
mention  in  the  goodly  company  of  American 
writers  of  to-day?  the  reader  of  these  papers  may 
ask.  Yea,  verily.  Place  aux  dames!  They  have 
been  kept  waiting  far  too  long.  The  order  of  these 
studies  is  not  intended  to  be  taken  as  a  judgment 
of  comparative  merit.  The  practice  of  classifying 
authors  and  ticketing  them  with  their  relative  rank 
Unprofitable  *s  doubtless  amusing  to  those  who  do  it, 
criticism.  an(j  mav  pOSSib]y  ke  instructive  to  others 

—  though  in  a  very  different  way  from  that  intended 
by  the  ticketers  —  but  it  is  scarcely  more  conclusive 
than  debate  on  the  ancient  question,  "  Which  is  pre 
ferable,  summer  or  winter?"  It  is  a  sort  of  criti 
cism  that  tells  much  more  about  the  critic  than 
about  the  authors  criticised,  and  should  be  eschewed 
in  self-protection. 

I. 

PROBABLY  nobody  will  dispute  Mrs.  Burnett's  right 
to  a  high  place  among  American  writers  on  the  ground 
that  she  is  of  English  birth.  Though  a  native  of 


FRANCES  HODGSON  BURNETT.  159 

Manchester,  and  familiar  with  life  in  Lancashire, 
her  parents  came  to  this  country  while  she  was  "a 
slip  of  a  girl."  before  her  character  had 

'  ...       ,  .        English  born, 

taken  form.     Thus,  while  her  early  recol 
lections  have  supplied  her  with  literary  material  of 
which  she  has  made  good  use,  in  sympathies  and  con 
victions  she  is  genuinely  American,   perhaps  more 
ardent  in  her  patriotism  than  many  an  "  heir  of  all 
the    ages,    in    the    foremost    files   of   time,"  —  the 
proper  description  of  a  native  American.    American 
Whether  exacting   foreign  critics  admit  bred 
that   she   is   truly   "American"    may   be   doubted, 
since  she  neither  spells  phonetically,  nor  deals  in 
broad,    exaggerated    humor.      We   who  have    lived 
here  all  our  lives,  and  are  consequently  so  blinded 
by  proximity  to  things  American  that  we  do  not 
really  see  them  as  they  are,   may  be  pardoned  for 
insisting  that  Mrs.   Burnett  is  one  of  us. 

That  Miss  Hodgson  should  become  an  author 
seems  to  have  been  ordained  from  the  beginning. 
In  that  charming  autobiography  of  hers  ••Lispedin 
which  so  delightfully  entertained  the  numbers-" 
readers  of  "Scribner's  Magazine,"  under  the  title 
of  "The  One  I  Knew  Best  of  All,"  — she  tells  us 
that  from  her  earliest  recollection  she  lived  in  an 
ideal  world,  and  was  an  unconscious  playwright 
and  romancer  even  in  the  nursery.  She  could  not 
see  anybody  who  impressed  her  at  all  without 
making  him  or  her  a  character  in  these  dramas  and 
romances,  and  inventing  all  sorts  of  deliciously 


160  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

impossible  adventures  for  them.  To  set  these  on 
paper  was  no  great  exploit  when  she  became  a  little 
older,  and  she  scribbled  tales  and  verses  for  her 
own  amusement,  with  no  thought  of  doing  anything 
remarkable.  Her  mother  was  sensible  enough, 
even  when  impressed  by  the  talent  of  the  child's 
performance,  to  suppress  signs  of  gratification,  so 
that  the  budding  author  escaped  the  conceit  with 
which  the  ordinary  infant  phenomenon  is  eaten  up. 
While  she  was  still  in  her  "teens"  Miss  Hodgson 
began  to  write  stories  for  publication,  moved  thereto 
by  desire  for  fame  perhaps,  but  still  more,  one  con 
jectures,  by  the  prosaic  desire  to  put  money  in  her 
purse.  In  1867  there  were  few  periodicals  to  which 
a  young  writer  could  send  stories  with  any  prospect 
of  payment,  and  when  payment  was  received  it  was 
a  sum  that  in  these  days  would  be  considered  ridi 
culously  small.  It  happened  that  "Peterson's 
Magazine  "  was  the  first  to  accept  and  print  one  of 
Miss  Hodgson's  stories,  and  thereafter  she  was  for 
several  years  a  quite  regular  contributor  to  that 
periodical. 

II. 

ONE  of  the   chief  objects  that  the  founders   of 
"Scribner's  Monthly"  proposed  to  themselves  was 

Discovered  by   tne   encouragement   of    American    litera- 
scribner's.        ture^  ari£  among  ^e  most  notable  of  their 

discoveries  must  be  placed  Mrs.  Burnett.     In  1872 
her  first  story  appeared  in  the  magazine,  —  "  Surly 


FRANCES  HODGSON  BURNETT.  l6l 

Tim's  Troubles,"  —  and  it  proved  that  the  young 
author  had  become  master  of  her  powers,  and  was 
ready  to  do  better  work  than  the  simple  stories  she 
had  hitherto  produced.  A  somewhat  prolonged 
silence  followed  this  publication,  however,  for 
another  love  had  come  to  divide  Frances  Hodgson's 
affection  for  literature.  In  1873  she  was  married 
to  Luan  M.  Burnett,  M.D.,  then  a  rising  physician 
of  Knoxville,  Tenn.  Since  1875  their  home  has 
been  in  Washington,  where  Dr.  Burnett  has  won  an 
enviable  reputation  and  practice  as  a  specialist  in 
diseases  of  the  eye.  He  is  in  no  danger,  therefore, 
of  being  known  to  the  world  only  as  "  the  husband 
of  Mrs.  Burnett,  the  famous  novelist,  you  know," 
which  of  all  fates  must  be  the  most  detestable  to  a 
man  of  any  spirit  or  brains. 

Mrs.  Burnett's  pen  was  not  idle  while  she  was 
making  trial  of  her  new  vocation  of  wife  and 
mother;  for  in  1877  appeared  "That  Lass  That Lasso, 
o'  Lowrie's,"  having  first  had  an  honorable  Lowrie>s- 
career  as  a  serial  in  "Scribner's  Monthly."  This 
gave  the  author  her  first  real  taste  of  fame,  and  the 
book  was  so  great  a  success  that  more  substantial 
reward  was  hers  at  once.  From  that  time  on  the 
world  has  gone  well  with  her,  if  a  large  bank 
account  and  the  praise  of  men  can  make  a  woman 
happy.  As  each  of  her  books  has  appeared,  it  has 
been  greeted  with  a  chorus  of  approbation,  and  even 
when  the  critics  have  doubted,  as  critics  sometimes 
will,  the  public  has  stood  by  its  favorite  and  bought 

11 


1 62  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 

without  a  qualm  of  doubt.     The  later  novels  from 
her  pen  have  been:  "  Haworth's"  (1879), 

Later  novels* 

"Louisiana"  (1880),  "A  Fair  Barbarian' 
(1881),  and  "Through  One  Administration"  (1883). 
Popular  as  all  these  have  been,  none  of  them  has 
quite  equalled  "That  Lass  o'  Lowrie's"  in  the 
favor  of  the  reading  public.  This  has  run  through 
edition  after  edition,  and  still  has  a  sale  little 
diminished  by  the  lapse  of  time.  It  well  deserves 
this  perennial  favor.  There  is  about  the  story  a 
freshness,  a  keenness  of  observation,  an  accuracy  of 
character-drawing  almost  photographic,  and  a  charm 
of  style  that  have  been  equalled  in  few  American 
novels,  and  perhaps  surpassed  in  none.  The  scene 
is  in  that  Lancashire  which  was  familiar  to  the 
author  in  her  childhood,  and  therefore  this  is 
in  a  sense  the  least  American  of  all  her  stories.  In 
spite  of  this,  the  book  took  fast  hold  of  American 
readers,  and  their  first  verdict  is  not  likely  ever  to 
be  reversed. 

Without  being  a  partisan  of  any  school  of  art, 
Mrs.  Burnett  was  in  this  story  a  realist  of  the 
Realist  by  straitest  sect,  — unconsciously  so  in  part, 
instinct.  no  doubt,  for  one  cannot  credit  her  with 

having  a  theory  to  serve.  She  set  out  to  tell  a 
story  true  to  the  life  she  had  herself  observed,  and 
she  peopled  her  book  with  such  men  and  women  as 
she  had  actually  known.  She  tells  us,  in  the  auto 
biography  to  which  reference  has  already  been 
made,  how  the  heroine  was  suggested  to  her, — the 


FRANCES  HODGSON  BURNETT.  163 

face  of  a  girl  whom  she  once  met  and  of  whom  she 
knew  nothing,  haunting  her  for  years,  and  irre 
sistibly  suggesting  a  train  of  adventures  that  must 
at  some  time  get  themselves  written  down.  But 
while  fancy  thus  supplied  the  warp  of  the  tale, 
actual  minute  observation  formed  its  woof.  The 
people  of  this  book  are  real  people;  they  have  been 
studied  from  life  by  one  who  has  a  wonderful  faculty 
of  close  observation,  an  indelible  memory,  and  an 
exceptional  power  of  conveying  to  her  readers  what 
she  has  seen. 

Mrs.  Burnett  also  showed  in  this  book  —  she  had 
given  us  glimpses  of  the  fact  before  —  that  she  is 
one  of  the  chosen  few  who  have  the  Hergiftof 
innate  faculty  of  expression.  It  is  as  style' 
impossible  to  say  in  what  consists  the  gift  of  style 
as  to  define  the  perfume  of  the  rose  or  the  har 
monies  of  Beethoven.  It  is  incommunicable,  it 
defies  analysis,  it  can  only  be  felt  and  enjoyed.  It 
is  not  essential  to  the  making  of  a  successful  or 
even  a  great  novelist,  —  witness  Dickens,  Reade, 
and  Collins,  men  of  great  gifts  as  writers  of  fiction, 
differing  wonderfully  in  method  and  effect,  but 
alike  in  that  none  of  them  was  ever  able  to  write  a 
page  that  one  would  read  a  second  time  for  its 
charm,  while  they  became  insufferable  whenever 
they  tried  to  do  a  bit  of  really  fine  writing.  But 
whatever  Mrs.  Burnett  writes  is  worth  reading, 
quite  apart  from  its  matter,  for  the  manner  in 
which  she  says  things.  Her  books  would  be  enjoy- 


1 64  AMERICAN    WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 

able  in  a  way,  if  they  violated  every  canon  of  the  art 
of  fiction.  Though  she  were  to  "write  nonsense  we 
should  still  read,  merely  to  see  how  delightfully  it 
is  possible  for  a  writer  to  say  foolish  nothings.  But 
she  does  not  write  nonsense,  —  quite  the  contrary. 
The  praise  she  has  received  has  not  disturbed  hsr 
mental  equilibrium,  and  has  never  betrayed  her 
into  a  display  of  illusory  omniscience.  Womanly 
as  ever,  painstaking  in  her  art,  not  concealing  her 
natural  pleasure  at  her  success,  but  not  unduly 
elated  by  it,  she  has  gone  on  with  her  work,  each 
year  enlarging  her  fame  and  gaining  fresh  laurels. 
For  if  the  critic  agree  with  the  verdict  of  the 
public,  that  on  the  whole  she  has  never  surpassed 
and  perhaps  never  equalled  her  first  great  success, 
each  subsequent  volume  has  shown  her  mastery  of 
the  art  of  fiction,  and  has  displayed  it  in  a  different 
field,  adding  to  the  first  triumph  a  series  of  lesser 
conquests,  and  demonstrating  the  breadth  of  her 
knowledge,  her  sympathy,  her  humanity. 

III. 

A  GREATER  triumph  than  she  had  won  in  her 
books  for  grown-up  people  was  in  store  for  Mrs. 
Burnett  when  she  began  to  write  for  the  little  folks. 
Little  Lord  The  exploits  and  sayings  of  one  of  her 
Fauntieroy.  Qwn  kovs  SUggested  to  her  the  story  of 
"Little  Lord  Fauntieroy"  (1886),  which  was,  with 
out  question,  the  most  successful  book  for  children 


FRANCES  HODGSON  BURNETT.  165 

ever  written  by  an  American.  It  extended  the 
author's  fame  more  than  another  sort  of  book  could 
have  spread  it,  for  in  capturing  the  hearts  of  the 
little  ones  she  won  those  of  fathers  and  mothers 
the  whole  country  over;  and  thousands  who  would 
never  have  heard  of  the  author  of  "That  Lass  o' 
Lowrie's "  feel  themselves  on  terms  of  familiar 
acquaintance  with  the  author  of  "  Little  Lord 
Fauntleroy. " 

On  the  whole,  the  book  must  be  "pronounced  more 
successful  as  an  article  of  commerce  than  as  a 
work  of  art.  It  has  but  one  defect,  to  Faultily  fault- 
be  sure,  but  that  is  most  serious,  abso-  less 
lutely  fatal  in  fact,  —  the  hero  of  the  tale  is  too 
faultily  faultless.  There  surely  never  was  a  live 
boy,  since  boys  first  were,  so  absolutely  perfect  as 
Fauntleroy.  The  best  boy  in  the  world  sometimes 
tears  his  clothes,  musses  his  hair,  has  fits  of  ill- 
temper,  and  fails  of  perfect  obedience  and  unsel 
fishness.  But  Fauntleroy  is  without  any  of  these 
failings;  he  is  always  irreproachably  dressed,  ex 
quisitely  polite,  and  his  conduct  is  without  a  flaw. 
He  reminds  one  of  that  nursery  heroine,  the  little 
girl  who  — 

"  When  she  was  good  she  was  very,  very  good, 
And  when  she  was  bad  she  was  horrid ; " 

only,  he  reminds  us  solely  of  the  first  half  of  her 
character,  for  he  is  never  bad  by  any  chance  or 
mischance.  He  is  so  very,  very  good,  indeed,  that 


1 66  AMERICAN   WRITERS   OF   TO-DAY. 

he  is  not  quite  human.  We  must  take  him,  not  for 
a  picture  of  a  real  boy,  but  for  the  author's  ideal  of 
what  a  boy  ought  to  be.  Masculine  critics  may, 
perhaps,  be  pardoned  for  saying  that  the  ideal 
lacks  something.  Fauntleroy  is  far  too  much  of  a 
mamma's  darling;  he  just  comes  short  of  being  a 
prig, —  comes  short  by  so  narrow  a  space  that  it  may 
be  questioned  if  he  does  not  sometimes  overstep  the 
line.  In  spite  of  her  faculty  of  observation,  her 
sympathetic  quality  as  an  artist,  and  her  experience 
of  motherhood,  Mrs.  Burnett  has  not  quite  plucked 
the  heart  out  of  the  mystery  of  boy  nature,  and  a 
little  dash  of  masculine  roughness,  a  soupgon  of 
naughtiness,  would  have  made  Fauntleroy  more 
human.  And  though  this  might  have  lessened  his 
attractiveness  to  fond  mammas,  the  not  less  fond 
papas  would  have  had  less  difficulty  in  recognizing 
the  picture. 

It  is  not  to  be  considered  remarkable  that,  from  the 
appearance  of  the  first  instalment  of  this  story  in 
Adored  by  the  "St.  Nicholas  "  to  its  publication  in  book 
chiid.en.  £ornlj  the  interest  Of  readers  should  have 

been  continuous  and  even  increasing.  The  story  is 
told  with  the  perfection  of  art;  the  author's  charm 
of  style  was  never  more  apparent  than  in  this  book. 
The  children,  who  were  her  chief  readers  at  first, 
might  not  have  been  fully  conscious  of  this  charm, 
though  they  doubtless  felt  its  power,  but  their 
elders  were  more  intelligently,  yet  hardly  more 
heartily,  appreciative.  Since  then  Mrs.  Burnett 


FRANCES  HODGSON  BURNETT.  167 

has  been  sure  of  her  audience  among  either  old  or 
young  in  America  whenever  she  cared  to  break 
silence.  Several  books  for  children  have  succeeded 
the  story  of  Fauntleroy,  such  as  "Sarah  other  books 

J  for  young 

Crewe,"  "Little  Saint  Elizabeth"  and  «aders. 
other  stories,  and  "Giovanni  and  the  Other."  Had 
these  books  not  been  obliged  to  undergo  comparison 
with  her  first  extraordinary  success,  they  might  have 
been  pronounced  excellent;  under  the  circumstances 
they  have  probably  been  something  of  a  disappoint 
ment  to  her  public.  The  public  always  expects 
that  an  author,  having  once  struck  twelve,  should 
go  on  striking  twelve  indefinitely,  and  even  lazily 
wonders  why  he  does  not  strike  thirteen.  The 
demand  is  unreasonable,  but  since  it  exists  authors 
must  submit  to  be  judged  by  readers  who  have  this 
prepossession.  One  must  either  go  on  record,  like 
"Single-speech  Hamilton,"  as  the  writer  of  one 
brilliantly  successful  book,  or  be  content  to  have 
all  subsequent  writings  declared  to  be  inferior  to 
that  by  which  he  first  gained  reputation.  It  will 
be  a  generation  or  two  hence  before  just  notions  are 
entertained,  not  merely  regarding  the  relative  rank 
of  living  authors,  but  the  relative  value  and  signifi 
cance  of  each  writer's  books.  This  at  least  is  to  be 
said  now  for  Mrs.  Burnett's  later  children's  books: 
they  are,  from  the  artist's  point  of  view,  superior 
to  the  more  popular  Fauntleroy,  because  truer  to 
life.  She  understands  girls,  and  her  girls  are  much 
more  human  than  her  impossible  boy  hero.  This  is 


1 68  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

not  the  popular  verdict,  but  one  is  persuaded  that  it 
will  be  the  ultimate  judgment  alike  of  readers  and 
of  critics. 

IV. 

COMPARATIVELY  few  of  our  American  writers  of 
fiction,  as  has  already  been  noted,  have  won  success 
A  dramatic  on  tne  stage.  How  far  Mrs.  Burnett  has 
had  the  assistance  of  more  experienced 
playwrights,  one  cannot  say,  but  such  collaboration 
could  in  no  case  have  extended  beyond  those  techni 
calities  that  are  pitfalls  for  the  unwary.  Her  plays 
have  been  adaptations  of  her  most  successful  stories, 
and  their  stage  success  has  equalled,  perhaps  sur 
passed,  their  vogue  in  print.  This  has  been  due  in 
the  main  to  their  intrinsic  merits,  but  in  one  case 
an  extraordinary  "run"  was  due  to  the  fortunate 
production  of  the  play.  One  refers,  of  course,  to 
the  dramatization  of  Fauntleroy's  story.  By  good 
chance  the  manager  who  produced  the  play  lighted 
upon  a  very  bright  and  charming  little  girl,  of  phe 
nomenal  dramatic  gifts,  to  take  the  leading  part  in 
the  play.  She  dressed  and  acted  the  part  of 
Fauntleroy  to  perfection,  and  succeeded  in  divest 
ing  the  character  of  that  unreal  air  which  mars  the 
perfection  of  the  story.  The  living  Fauntleroy 
seemed  more  human,  less  priggish;  the  art  of  the 
little  actress  was  convincing,  where  the  art  of  the 
novelist  had  failed  to  convince. 

No  doubt  this  dramatic  success  has  been  gratify- 


FRANCES  HODGSON  BURNETT.  169 

ing  to  the  author,  because  it  brought  her  a  wider 
and  well-deserved  fame,  and  still  more  because  it 
has  made  her,  comparatively  speaking,  Itsreward 
a  rich  woman.  The  rewards  of  author 
ship  are  not  excessive,  even  in  the  case  of  the  most 
fortunate;  lawyers  or  physicians  of  medium  abilities 
may  be  named  by  the  score,  in  any  one  of  our  great 
cities,  whose  yearly  income  far  surpasses  that  of 
the  best  paid  man  of  letters  in  the  United  States. 
When  any  one  of  the  profession,  therefore,  gets 
something  like  his  due  reward,  it  is  cause  for 
general  rejoicing  in  the  craft,  not  for  jealousy  and 
gnashing  of  teeth.  Every  such  success  brings  nearer 
the  day  when  the  profession  of  letters  will  be  as 
well  paid,  for  work  of  the  same  grade,  as  the  pro 
fessions  of  medicine  or  the  law;  when  the  salary  of 
a  millionnaire's  cook  will  not  exceed  the  copyright 
value  of  a  work  that  from  the  day  of  its  publication 
takes  its  place  among  American  classics. 

Mrs.  Burnett's  dramatic  success  had  one  result 
for  which  all  who  favor  pure  and  innocent  amuse 
ments  may  well  be  grateful.  Many  people 

One  sequel. 

who  had  never  entered  a  theatre  in  their 
lives  went  to  see  Fauntleroy,  overcome  by  the  per 
suasion  of  their  children,  and  "  snatched  a  fearful 
joy  "  in  the  playhouse,  half-persuaded  still  that  they 
were  committing  a  deadly  sin.  They  were  shown 
by  the  most  effective  of  object  lessons  that  the 
stage  is  not  necessarily  the  corrupt  and  corrupting 
thing  they  had  been  taught  to  believe  it  to  be,  — 


170  AMERICAN   WRITERS   OF   TO-DAY. 

that  it  may  be  made,  not  merely  innocent  and  amus 
ing,  but  elevating  and  ennobling.  If  good  people 
applied  to  books  the  logic  they  apply  to  the  stage, 
if  they  refused  to  read  any  books  because  so  many 
bad  books  are  printed,  there  would  soon  be  no 
readers  but  the  vicious  and  the  vile,  and  so  in  a 
little  while  only  bad  books  would  be  made.  Mrs. 
Burnett's  little  play  was  a  missionary  force  that  did 
wonders  in  the  breaking  down  of  almost  invincible 
prejudice  founded  on  ignorance  and  misinformation. 
It  is  a  curious  fact  that  though  she  lived  for  ten 
years,  ten  years  of  the  most  impressionable  part  of 
Her  ignoring  of  ner  ^e  m  Tennessee,  the  work  of  Mrs. 
Tennessee.  Burnett  bears  almost  no  trace  of  this  ex 
perience.  One  would  think  that  she  must  know  the 
Tennessee  folk  as  well  as  Miss  Murfree,  but  her 
books  are  concerned  almost  wholly  with  the  Lan 
cashire  of  her  childhood,  or  the  American  cities  in 
which  her  maturer  years  have  been  spent.  One 
can  hardly  account  for  her  ignoring  of  this  rich 
material,  for  she  was  in  the  field  and  had  made  a 
name  for  herself  before  Miss  Murfree,  and  there 
was  no  question  of  another's  priority  to  hold  her  in 
check.  It  may  be,  for  Mrs.  Burnett  should  have 
many  years  of  literary  work  before  her,  that  in 
some  future  romance  this  mine  may  be  worked  by 
her,  and  that  we  shall  be  made  richer  by  acquaint 
ance  with  some  Joan  of  Tennessee.  At  any  rate, 
we  are  warranted  in  expecting  from  her  greater 
things  than  she  has  yet  done. 


X. 

CHARLES    EGBERT   CRADDOCK. 

VETERAN  readers  of  the  "Atlantic,"  when 
they  cut  the  leaves  of  the  number  for  May, 
1878,  had  a  fresh  sensation.  In  the  "Contents" 
on  the  familiar  yellow  cover  they  read,  "  The  Dancin' 
Party  at  Harrison's  Cove,  by  Charles  Egbert  Crad- 
dock."  The  title  and  the  name  suggested  Thefirststory 
little,  — the  name  was  absolutely  new  to 
every  reader,  —  but  those  who  read  the  story  found 
that  the  writer  had  opened  an  entirely  fresh  vein  in 
American  literature.  Harrison's  Cove,  it  turned  out, 
was  a  settlement  among  the  mountains  of  Tennessee, 
now  first  made  known  to  the  world  at  large;  and 
the  story  was  concerned  with  the  fortunes  of  a  type 
of  mankind  quite  new  to  literature. 

From  time  to  time  other  stories  appeared  from 
the  same  writer.  Their  merit  was  recognized,  and 
the  name  of  Craddock  was  enrolled  on  the  list  of 
our  rising  authors.  Finally,  in  1884,  eight  of 
these  tales  were  gathered  into  a  volume  iu  the  Ten- 

nessee  Moun- 

inscribed  with  the   title,    "  In    the  Ten-   tains, 
nessee  Mountains."    On  a  copy  of  this  book,  printed 
in  1892,  one  finds  the  legend,  dear  to  the  heart  of 


172  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

authors,  "Twenty-second  edition."  To  be  sure, 
"edition"  means  little  or  much  in  the  American 
trade,  but  in  this  case  it  is  understood  to  mean  one 
thousand  copies.  The  author  whose  first  book  sells 
at  this  rate  evidently  has  the  game  in  his  hands. 

So  far,  singularly  little  was  known  of  the  writer 
of  these  tales.  The  fact  became  public  after  a 
Themysteri-  while  thatCharles  Egbert  Craddock  was 
ous author.  a  pSeudOnym,  and  that  the  writer's  real 
name  was  M.  N.  Murfree,  but  this  was  just  enough 
light  to  make  the  darkness  visible.  Neither  editor 
nor  publisher  had  any  acquaintance  with  him  save 
by  letter.  No  other  American  author  knew  any 
thing  about  him.  His  post-office  address  was  St. 
Louis,  and  it  was  evident  that  he  must  at  some 
time  have  lived  among  the  folk  and  the  scenes  that 
he  described  so  graphically;  but  beyond  this 
nobody  had  any  information.  Handwriting,  accord 
ing  to  Poe  and  others,  is  an  infallible  index  of 
character.  Mr.  Craddock' s  chirography  would  have 
indicated  to  any  interpreter  a  bold,  masculine, 
adventurous  nature,  —  it  was  so  free,  so  decided,  so 
heavy.  Indeed,  the  expenditure  of  ink  is  so  lavish 
as  to  suggest  that  the  writer  used  the  sharp  end  of 
a  stick,  a  la  John  Chinaman,  instead  of  a  pen,  for 
no  goose  ever  hatched,  one  would  think,  could 
furnish  a  quill  capable  of  such  execution.  Mr. 
Aldrich,  then  editor  of  the  "Atlantic,"  used  to 
crack  his  jokes  on  this  peculiarity.  "I  wonder," 
he  remarked  one  day,  "  if  Craddock  has  laid  in  his 


CHARLES  EGBERT  CRADDOCK.  173 

winter's  ink;   perhaps  we  could  get  a  serial  from 
him." 

What  was  the  sensation  one  spring  day  in  1885 
when  there  walked  into  the  editorial  office  of  the 
"  Atlantic  "  a  demure  young  woman  who  The  mystery 
announced  herself  as  Charles  Egbert  Crad-  disclosed' 
dock !  The  proverbial  feather  would  have  knocked 
down  everybody,  from  editor-in-chief  to  office 
cat.  A  Southern  girl  in  her  twenties  had  fooled 
the  'cuteness  of  all  Yankeedom,  and  brought  to 
naught  the  critics  with  their  boasted  insight,  and 
their  wonderful  gift  of  determining  all  sorts  of 
obscure  matters  by  internal  evidence.  Beginning 
with  Mr.  Aldrich,  or  even  with  Mr.  Howells  before 
him,  and  going  on  down  to  the  smallest  newspaper 
scribbler,  they  were  all  her  victims.  Not  one  of 
them  had  divined  that  Charles  Egbert  Craddock  was 
other  than  he  seemed. 

This  was  a  more  notable  achievement  than  appears 
on  the  face  of  the  facts.  One  of  the  best  kept 
literary  secrets  of  the  century  was  the  authorship 
of  "  Scenes  of  Clerical  Life  "  and  "  Adam  surpasses 
Bede."  Special  pains  were  taken  to  keep  GeorgeEliot- 
the  public  in  the  dark.  For  some  time  even  Mr. 
John  Blackwood,  the  editor  who  accepted  the  tales 
for  his  magazine,  and  the  publisher  who  afterwards 
issued  them  in  book  form,  was  as  much  mystified 
as  anybody.  He  was  so  completely  taken  in  by  the 
pseudonym  that  he  addressed  letters  to  the  author, 
under  care  of  Lewes,  as  "  My  dear  George. "  To 


1/4  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

be  sure,  Mr.  Aldrich  with  his  "  My  dear  Craddock," 
quite  duplicated  this  performance;  but  from  the 
very  first  there  were  those  who  divined  the  secret 
of  George  Eliot,  though,  of  course,  they  could  not 
accurately  fix  the  personality.  When  the  first  story 
appeared,  Dickens  suspected  the  author  to  be  a 
woman,  while  Thackeray  and  Mrs.  Oliphant  were 
certain  that  such  was  the  case.  But  no  happy 
instinct  led  anybody  to  guess  the  secret  of  Charles 
Egbert  Craddock.  The  name  was  not  even  sus 
pected  of  being  a  pseudonym  until  this  was  con 
fessed,  and  when  so  much  was  admitted,  nobody 
suspected  that  anything  remained  to  be  cleared  up. 
The  author  had  no  need  of  lying,  as  the  author  of 
"  Waverley "  had,  to  silence  prying  questioners,  — 
there  were  none,  since  Mr.  Craddock-Murfree  was 
accepted  everywhere  at  his  own  valuation.  A  fur 
ther  element  of  triumph  consisted  in  the  fact  that 
George  Eliot's  hand  was  forced  by  a  rival  claimant 
to  the  authorship  of  her  books,  else  the  attempt  to 
keep  the  secret  might  have  continued  ;  but  the  author 
of  the  Craddock  tales  made  her  incognito  good  until 
she  no  longer  cared  to  conceal  her  identity,  and 
she  chose  her  own  time  and  place  for  a  dramatic 
denouement. 

I. 

THE  story  was,  of  course,  too  good  to  keep,  and 
the  identity  of  the  already  popular  author  was  made 
known  to  the  world.  From  that  time,  though  the 


CHARLES  EGBERT  CRADDOCK.  175 

pseudonym  still  appears  on  title-pages  and  in  cata 
logues,  the  author  has  been  best  known  under  her 
own  proper  cognomen.  With  the  transpiring  of  the 
secret  a  few  biographical  details  were  also  made 
public,  though  they  are  rather  scanty. 

Mary  Noailles  Murfree  comes  of  the  best  Ameri 
can  stock.  Her  great-grandfather,  Hardy  Murfree, 
was  a  native  of  North  Carolina,  and  a 
gallant  soldier  in  the  War  of  the  Revolu 
tion.  He  was  a  subordinate  of  Mad  Anthony 
Wayne  at  the  storming  of  Stony  Point,  — the  most 
brilliant  action  of  the  whole  war,  on  either  side,  — 
and  bore  himself  honorably  in  many  another  con 
test,  rising  to  the  rank  of  colonel  before  peace  was 
declared.  In  1807  he  emigrated  to  the  new  State 
of  Tennessee,  and  settled  near  the  present  town  of 
Murfreesboro,  which  was  named  in  his  honor.  Miss 
Murfree  was  born  at  the  family  estate,  Grantlands, 
near  Murfreesboro.  It  is  said  that  while  quite 
young  she  suffered  the  misfortune  of  a  stroke  of 
paralysis,  which  rendered  her  lame  for  life.  She 
was  thus  debarred  from  the  active  life  and  open-air 
sports  of  other  children,  and  turned  for  consolation 
to  books,  becoming  an  eager  student  and  omni 
vorous  reader.  The  Civil  War  reduced  the  family 
fortunes,  and  shortly  after  its  close  her  father  re 
moved  to  St.  Louis,  where  he  engaged  in  the 
practice  of  law. 

This  is  about  all  that  is  known  to  the  public  of 
this  author's   life;   for  the  rest  we  are  dependent 


AMERICAN   WRITERS   OF   TO-DAY. 


chiefly  on  conjecture  and  the  internal  evidence 
afforded  by  her  books.  It  is,  perhaps,  a  fair  infer 
ence  that  a  desire  for  the  emoluments  of  literature, 
rather  than  for  its  fame,  influenced  Miss  Murfree 
in  her  first  efforts.  Dr.  Johnson  once  said  some 
thing  to  the  effect  that  nobody  but  a  fool  ever  wrote 
anything  except  for  pay,  but  this  is  not  one  of  the 
wisest  sayings  of  old  Ursa  Major.  Doubtless  the 
need  of  bread  and  butter  has,  in  modern  times  at 
least,  produced  more  literature  than  ambition,  but 
if  that  were  the  only  motive  it  would  be  a  bread- 
Aconsden-  and-butter  literature  that  would  be  pro- 
tious  worker.  duced<  Though  Johnson's  saying  was 
obviously  a  hasty  generalization  founded  on  imper 
fect  induction,  and  is  not  to  be  taken  au  pied  de 
lettre,  it  contains  more  than  a  modicum  of  truth. 
What  Miss  Murfree's  books  warrant  us  in  conclud 
ing  is  that,  from  whatever  motive  she  began  her 
writing,  she  has  continued  because  she  loves  her 
calling,  and  takes  honest  pride  in  doing  her  work 
well,  irrespective  of  the  reward.  Conscientious 
workmanship  can  never  be  mistaken,  and  its  signi 
ficance  is  great.  No  merely  mercenary  writer  can 
be  an  artist  in  words.  There  is  no  reason  why  he 
should  be.  The  annals  of  modern  literature  are  full 
of  instances  of  sudden  reputation  won,  and  great 
gains  made  by  men  and  women  who  were  no  more 
novelists  than  a  negro  kalsominer  is  a  painter.  If 
one  writes  to  make  money  only  or  chiefly,  the  thing 
to  do  is  to  set  up  a  literary  mill  and  grind  out  books 


CHARLES  EGBERT  CRADDOCK.  177 

by  the    bushel,  like  —  but    every   instructed   reader 
can  name  half  a  dozen  such  without  hesitation. 

Miss  Murfree's  workmanship  is  admirable,  in  the 
first  instance,  because  she  writes  from  adequate 
knowledge  of  her  subject.  She  knows  the  Thorough 
Tennessee  mountains  and  the  Tennessee  knowledse- 
people  thoroughly.  She  has  not  merely  mastered 
their  surface  peculiarities,  such  as  their  dialect, 
their  dress,  their  mode  of  life,  but  she  has  seen  to 
the  bottom  of  their  souls,  and  knows  their  inner 
life  as  well  as  the  outer.  She  has  not  only  seen, 
she  has  analyzed,  combined,  classified,  interpreted 
her  facts  until  she  fully  comprehends  them  in  all 
their  relations.  If  she  had  been  a  devotee  of  real 
ism  she  might  have  ended  with  seeing  and  describ 
ing  ;  as  it  is,  while  truly  realistic,  with  a  sharpness 
of  detail  almost  photographic,  in  her  fidelity  to  fact 
she  does  not  forget  the  higher  truth  of  being,  and 
so  she  both  understands  her  people  and  makes  us 
understand  them  likewise. 

But  this  knowledge  is  not  enough  for  a  novelist, 
or,  rather,  it   is   not   possible  without   the   previous 
acquisition    of   other  knowledge,  or,  still  Depthofin- 
again,   if   its   acquirement    is    possible,   it  sight- 
cannot  be  successfully  communicated  to  others ;  its 
real  nature  cannot  even  be  grasped  fully  by  one  other 
wise  untutored.     There  are  scores  in  the  Tennessee 
mountains  who   know  all   that  Miss  Murfree  could 
see    there,  know  it    more    completely,  perhaps,  and 
have  made  it  much  more  a  part  of  themselves,  but 


178  AMERICAN   WRITERS   OF  TO-DAY 

they  could  never  tell  it  to  the  world;  in  a  sense, 
and  a  very  real  sense,  they  may  be  said  not  actually 
to  know  it,  for  they  do  not  know  it  in  relation  to 
other  knowledges.  Miss  Murfree  brought  with  her 
to  the  mountains  and  the  mountain  folk,  the  power 
of  seeing  more  than  an  ordinary  observer  could  find 
in  either.  She  brought  a  cultivated  mind,  made 
impressible  by  natural  and  spiritual  beauty  through 
the  study  of  nature,  of  literature,  of  life.  Those 
long  early  years  of  reading  and  meditation  had  not 
been  in  vain.  None  see  so  deeply  into  the  heart  of 
things  as  those  who  have  been  in  a  measure  secluded 
from  the  world,  and  have  had  as  the  instructors  of 
their  working  hours  and  their  companions  in  idle 
ness  the  choicest  minds  of  all  ages. 


II. 

Miss  MURFREE  began  her  work,  we  have  already 
seen,  as  a  writer  of  short  stories,  but  her  continu 
ance  in  this  province  was  brief.  Since 
the  publication  of  "In  the  Tennessee 
Mountains,"  if  one  remembers  correctly,  she  has 
never  tried  this  kind  of  writing  again.  Probably 
we  owe  her  early  tales  to  the  same  cause  that  im 
pelled  the  disguise  of  a  pseudonym,  —  a  lack  of 
confidence  in  her  powers,  and  a  wish  to  make 
experiment  in  a  modest  way  before  attempting  an 
ambitious  enterprise.  Her  instinct  must  have  told 
her  very  soon,  however,  that  she  had  nothing  to 


CHARLES  EGBERT  CRADDOCK.  I/O 

fear,  and  also  must  have  assured  her  that  she  was 
wasting  her  material  in  the  composition  of  these 
tales. "  Several  of  them,  though  they  seem  at  first 
reading  to  reach  the  height  of  excellence  just  as 
they  are,  on  analysis  disclose  the  fact  that  they  are 
not  so  much  complete  tales  as  abbreviated  novels. 
This  is  especially  true  of  "  Drifting  Down  Lost 
Creek,"  into  which  enough  of  plot  and  character  is 
crowded  to  furnish  forth  a  novel  of  full  length. 
The  skeleton  is  there  complete,  and  only  needs  to 
be  clothed  with  flesh,  that  is  to  say,  with  dialogue 
and  description,  to  make  a  book  equal  in  interest 
and  power  to  any  of  the  author's  later  writing.  In 
the  perfect  short  story  the  length  of  the  tale  is 
exactly  proportioned  to  its  content,  and  to  expand 
it  to  the  dimensions  of  a  novel  would  make  of  it  an 
intolerable  wishy-washy  dilution.  Though  we  find 
a  defect  in  some  of  these  stories,  it  must  be 
admitted  that  it  is  a  fault  that  leans  to  virtue's 
side.  Not  much  literary  work,  in  these  days,  can 
be  called  imperfect  because  of  its  excess  of  riches. 

It  did  seem,  however,  on  her  first  trial  of  a  longer 
flight,  that  a  good  writer  of  tales  had  been  spoiled 
to  make  a  poor  novelist.     Not  that  there  Veryiikea 
were  no  good  points  in  "  Where  the  Battle  failure> 
was  Fought"  (Boston,    1884);   Miss  Murfree  could 
not,  if  she  tried,  write  a  book  without  solid  merits. 
The  book  simply  was  not  so  good  as  we  had  a  right 
to   expect.       Her   tales   had   been   as  vigorous,    as 
sinewy,  as  wholesome  as  her  mountaineers.      This 


ISO  AMERICAN  WRITERS   OF    TO-DAY. 

was  a  novel  of  the  conventional  sort,  with  a  plot  of 
the  well-worn  type,  and  lacked  the  characteristic 
Craddock  flavor.  A  wish  to  show  that  she  could 
write  about  something  else  than  the  mountain 
people  may  have  caused  the  author  to  make  this 
mis  step.  Doubtless  she  can  write  about  many 
other  things,  but  doubtless  she  can  write  of  nothing 
about  which  her  public  would  so  willingly  hear. 
The  scenes  and  types  of  her  stories  brought  the 
piquant  and  titillating  flavor  of  absolute  novelty  to 
the  jaded  palate  of  the  novel  reader;  and  though 
the  taste  is  now  familiar,  it  has  lost  none  of  its 
savor.  Still  less  was  there  danger  ten  years  ago 
that  the  public  would  quickly  tire  of  the  mountains 
and  their  quaint  men  and  women. 

Miss  Murfree  is  not  one  of  those  who  cannot 
learn  in  the  school  of  experience,  and  she  has  never 
repeated  that  mistake.  From  that  time  on,  in 
regular  succession  her  books  have  come  from  the 
press  showing  a  steady  growth  in  artistic  power. 
First  came  "  Down  the  Ravine  "  (1885),  fol- 

Her  books.  V  J 

lowed  in  the  same  year  by  "The  Prophet 
of  the  Great  Smoky  Mountains,"  and  at  slightly 
longer  intervals  by  "In  the  Clouds"  (1886),  "The 
Story  of  Keedon  Bluffs"  (1887),  "The  Despot  of 
Brownsedge  Cove"  (1888),  and  "In  the  'Stranger 
People's  Country"  (New  York,  1891).  This  is 
pretty  rapid  production,  but  not  too  rapid  for  good 
workmanship,  as  the  books  themselves  prove,  and 
as  is  proved  by  the  example  of  numerous  other 


CHARLES  EGBERT  CRADDOCK.  l8l 

novelists,  American  and  foreign.  Slow  composi 
tion  does  not  necessarily  produce  work  of  a  high 
quality;  comparative  rates  of  production  are  a  test 
of  temperament  and  industry  rather  than  of  excel 
lence.  There  is  no  "scamped"  work  in  Miss 
Murfree's  books.  She  produces  rapidly  but  not 
hurriedly,  and  no  signs  of  slipshod  or  careless  per 
formance  are  traceable  in  any  of  her  writing.  So 
long  as  she  keeps  up  to  the  mark  she  has  set  for 
herself,  and  thus  far  reached  without  one  failure  — 
for  "Where  the  Battle  was  Fought,"  so  far  as  it  may 
be  called  a  failure,  failed  because  of  an  unwise 
choice  of  theme,  not  by  lack  of  faithful  labor  —  the 
more  books  she  gives  her  readers  the  more  she  will 
gratify  the  most  critical  among  them. 

III. 

FOUR  things  go  to  the  making  of  a  good  novel : 
plot,  dialogue,  description,  style.  There  may  be 
other  things,  but  these  are  the  chief,  and  novelists 
differ  from  each  other  mainly  in  the  relative  impor 
tance  they  assign  to  these  four  elements  and  their 
relative  skill  in  the  use  ot  them.  Few  writers  are 
really  great  in  more  than  two  of  these  four  things, 
and  are  fortunate  not  to  fall  below  mediocrity  in 
one  or  more  of  them. 

Miss  Murfree  is  not  remarkable  for  the  strength 
or  interest  of  her  plots;  the  best  we  can  say  of 
them  is  that  they  answer  her  purposes,  and  do  not 


1 82  AMERICAN    WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

impress  the  reader  as  unpleasantly  weak.      She   is 
to  be  praised  in  that,   not  having  a  genius  for  in 
vention,   she  has  risen   above  the   temp- 

Plot. 

tation  to  strain  after  effects  she  could  not 
gain.  It  is  a  rare  grace  in  a  writer  to  be  content 
to  remain  simply  natural,  and  that  grace  she  has. 

In  the  matter  of  dialogue,  also,  the  critic  must 
give  Miss  Murfree  a  curiously  qualified  commenda 
tion:  she  both  reaches  and  falls  short  of 
the  highest  excellence.  Here,  too,  she 
is  found  to  be  natural,  which  in  a  sense  is  the 
highest  praise  that  could  be  spoken  of  any  writer. 
But  her  characters  are  uncultivated  people;  they 
come  of  a  race  distinguished  for  rugged  strength 
rather  than  for  grace;  to  endow  them  with  wit  and 
humor,  —  save  of  the  primitive  kind, —  with  reflect 
iveness,  with  philosophic  insight,  would  have  been 
to  make  them  caricatures  of  the  rugged  and  uncouth 
mountaineer.  By  the  nature  of  her  subject-matter 
the  author  precluded  herself  from  brilliancy  of 
dialogue.  Keen  dialect,  the  fine  play  of  fancy, 
lambent  humor,  scintillating  wit,  quotation  and 
allusion,  — all  the  mental  charms  we  associate  with 
high  culture, —  are  out  of  the  question  in  her  books. 
For  these  we  must  go  to  Howells,  or  James,  or 
Crawford.  It  is  a  necessity  of  the  situation,  and 
by  the  deliberate  restraint  Miss  Murfree  has  put 
upon  herself  in  this  matter  she  shows  an  art  far 
higher  than  she  would  have  shown  by  yielding  to 
the  temptation  to  display  her  abilities. 


CHARLES  EGBERT  CRADDOCK.  183 

It  is  in  description  alone  that  the  author  has 
been  free  to  give  full  scope  to  her  literary  skill. 
In  the  first  story  of  the  "  Atlantic  "  series 

Description. 

there  was  a  taste  of  her  quality,  in  this 
picture  of  an  August  sky:  "An  early  moon  was 
riding,  clear  and  full,  over  this  wild  spur  of  the 
Alleghanies;  the  stars  were  few  and  very  faint; 
even  the  great  Scorpio  lurked,  vaguely  outlined, 
above  the  wooded  ranges;  and  the  white  mist,  that 
filled  the  long,  deep,  narrow  valley  between  the 
parallel  lines  of  mountains,  shimmered  with  opal 
escent  gleams."  Miss  Murfree  has  gone  on  culti 
vating  her  gift,  until  in  her  last  books  it  comes 
very  near  absolute  perfection.  She  accomplishes 
some  feats  that  are  almost  incredible.  Who  would 
have  believed  it  possible,  for  instance,  that  the 
fleeting  effects  of  light  and  shade  caused  by  the 
passage  of  a  cloud  could  be  expressed  in  anything 
save  the  colors  of  a  painter's  palette,  if  he  had  not 
read  this:  "His  eyes  were  on  the  stretch  of  barley, 
bending  and  swaying  as  the  wind  swept  through  its 
pliant  blades,  and  shoaling  from  an  argentine  glister 
to  green,  and  from  green  again  to  elusive  silver 
glintings  —  what  time  the  cove  below  was  dark  and 
purple  and  blurred,  as  a  great  white  cloud  hung, 
dazzling  and  opaque,  high,  high  in  the  sky,  and,  as 
it  passed,  the  valley  grew  gradually  into  distinct 
ness  again,  with  the  privilege  of  the  sunshine  and 
the  freedom  of  the  wind,  and  all  its  land-marks 
asserted  anew."  Here  is  a  scene  equally  fine:  "He 


184  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

turned  and  looked  at  the  gorge,  as  if  he  expected  to 
see  there  the  pearly  disk  among  the  dark  obscure- 
ments  of  the  night-shadowed  mountains.  It  was 
instead  a  vista  of  many  gleaming  lights;  the  sun 
shine  on  the  river,  and  the  differing  lustre  of  the 
water  in  the  shadow;  the  fine  crystalline  green  of 
the  cataract,  and  the  dazzling  white  of  the  foam  and 
the  spray;  the  luminous  azure  of  the  far-away  peaks, 
and  the  enamelled  glister  of  the  blue  sky,  —  all 
showing  between  the  gloomy,  sombre  ranges  close 
at  hand." 

Pages  of  such  bits  might  be  extracted  from 
these  later  books.  And  yet  it  should  not  be  in 
ferred  that  the  author  has  fallen  a  victim  to  her 
acquired  facility,  and  bores  her  reader  with  passages 
inserted  for  mere  display.  Few  writers  show  a 
better  appreciation  of  the  shrewd  saying  of  the 
sententious  Hobbes:  "For  words  are  wise  men's 
counters,  —  they  do  but  reckon  by  them ;  but  they 
NO  purple  are  t^ie  monev  of  fools. "  In  every  case, 
patches.  these  bits  Q£  iandscape  are  fitted  into  the 

story  so  deftly  as  to  be  an  inseparable  part  of  it; 
they  accompany  and  explain  the  acts  and  moods  of 
the  characters  so  as  to  justify  their  place  in  the 
text,  and  are  no  purple  patches  clumsily  stitched 
on  as  an  afterthought.  Surely,  such  writing  as 
the  above  bits  fairly  represent  is  entitled  to  the 
much-abused  and  sadly  vulgarized  phrase  "word- 
painting." 

It  is  no  violent  transition,  certainly,  to  a  general 


CHARLES  EGBERT  CR  AD  DOCK.       1 8$ 

consideration  of  Miss  Murfree's  style.      Simplicity, 

correctness,  and  grace  are  its  character- 
style. 
istics.     It  is  true  that  these  adjectives 

apply  only  when  the  author  has  not  her  dialect  fit 
on;  mountainese  and  pure  English  are  necessarily 
incompatible.  But  it  must  be  said,  in  justice  to 
her,  that  her  dialect  is  quite  as  clever  as  her 
ordinary  English  style;  it  is  not  exaggerated  or 
overdone,  and  the  conventional  orthography  is  not 
unnecessarily  mangled.  There  are  strange  muta 
tions  in  writing  as  well  as  in  dress,  and  literary 
fashions  change  with  quite  as  much  bewildering 
rapidity  and  quite  as  little  reasonableness  as  the 
fashions  in  millinery.  The  rationale  of  fashion  is 
a  deep  subject,  —  if  one  may  predicate  rationality 
of  anything  whose  origin  seems  to  be  in  utter 
mental  vacuousness,  —  and  we  are  concerned  at 
present  only  with  its  phenomena.  An  unreason 
ing  vogue  of  dialect  a  few  years  ago  has  been  suc 
ceeded  by  a  prejudice  against  dialect,  that  would 
be  quite  as  unreasonable  had  not  the  reading  public 
been  surfeited  by  the  deluge  of  dialect  stories  pro 
duced  by  its  first  eager  patronage.  But  there  is 
dialect  and  dialect.  Miss  Murfree's  is  of  the  best; 
and,  in  any  case,  it  is  hard  to  see  how  she  could 
have  written  of  her  mountaineers  on  any  other 
terms.  Certainly,  if  she  was  to  represent  them  as 
they  are,  she  must  set  them  before  us  with  their 
peculiar  speech.  The  only  question  that  can  fairly 
be  raised  in  this  case  is  whether  it  was  worth  while 


1 86  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

for  Miss  Murfree  to  write  stories  about  the  Tennessee 
mountains  at  all.  As  to  that,  but  one  verdict  can 
be  expected  of  her  readers.  If  there  are  any  who 
think  otherwise,  the  world  of  letters  is  all  before 
them  where  to  choose. 

We  could  ill  spare  Miss  Murfree' s  contribution 
to  fiction.  It  is  racy  of  the  soil.  The  most  exact 
ing  among  our  British  censors  will  not  venture  to 
deny  to  her  books  the  right  to  the  distinctive 
epithet,  American. 


XI. 

ELIZABETH   STUART  PHELPS. 

LOItD  BYRON  once  said,  in  describing  the  sudden 
fame  that  came  to  him  from  the  publication  of 
the  first  part  of  "  Childe  Harold's  Pilgrimage,"  "  I 
awoke  next  morning  and  found  myself  famous." 
There  was  almost  as  much  truth  as  hyperbole  in  the 
saying,  and  the  same  remark  might  have  been  made 
by  the  author  of  "  The  Gates  Ajar."  When  that  book 
first  appeared,  more  than  twenty-five  years  ago,  it 
attained  a  popularity  of  the  most  extensive  and  im 
pressive  sort.  There  were  some  weeks,  according 
to  the  story  told  of  it  by  its  publisher,  when  the 
fate  of  the  book  seemed  trembling  in  the 

Sudden  fame. 

balance ;  then  all  at  once  the  sales  showed 
a  phenomenal  increase,  and  advanced  by  leaps  and 
bounds.  Twenty  editions  were  sold  within  a  single 
year.  The  book  was  on  every  table,  and  its  discussion 
was  on  every  lip.  The  furore  it  caused  was  even 
greater  than  that  provoked  recently  by  the  publication 
of  "  Robert  Elsmere."  The  theology  underlying  the 
book  was  ardently  defended  by  some  and  fiercely 
criticised  by  others.  Long  articles  were  written  against 
it  in  the  religious  newspapers,  and  ministers  made  it 


1 88  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

the  theme  of  sermons,  mostly  minatory  and  anathema- 
breathing,  and  dreadful  things  were  said  of  the  author's 
heterodoxy.  It  was,  in  short,  one  of  the  notable 
literary  successes  of  our  time ;  and  whatever  one  may 
think  of  the  book,  now  that  a  quarter-century  has 
passed  away,  and  the  time  for  a  cool  judgment  has 
come,  it  still  remains  a  literary  success  of  the  first 
magnitude. 


Now,  notwithstanding  Dogberry's  obiter  dictum 
that  "  reading  and  writing  come  by  nature,"  nothing 
is  more  certain  than  the  fact  that  a  book  of  this  kind 
does  not  get  itself  written  by  accident.  Elizabeth 
Stuart  Phelps,  when  she  wrote  "  The  Gates  Ajar," 
had  served  an  apprenticeship  of  some  length  in  litera 
ture.  She  began  to  write  for  the  press  at 

A  born  author. 

thirteen  years  of  age,  and  was  already  the 
author  of  a  dozen  volumes,  stories  for  children  mostly, 
of  the  usual  Sunday-school  type  —  no,  of  an  unusual 
type.  She  was  the  daughter  of  Austin  Phelps,  the 
instructor  of  Andover  theologues  for  forty  years  in 
sacred  rhetoric,  and  the  writer  of  a  small  library  of 
books  whose  brilliant  and  pungent  style  has  been 
admired  by  two  generations  of  readers.  Her  mother 
was  Elizabeth  Stuart,  —  daughter  of  Moses  Stuart, 
another  name  inseparably  connected  with  the  history 
of  Andover,  —  herself  the  author  of  many  books, 
mostly  fiction  with  a  religious  motive.  Miss  Phelps 


ELIZABETH  STUART  PHELPS.  189 

thus  breathed  the  atmosphere  of  letters  from  her  in 
fancy,  and  alike  by  inherited  instinct  and  by  careful 
training  was  fitted  for  a  literary  career.  That  she 
should  begin  one  was  to  be  expected  ;  that  she  should 
be  successful  it  was  perhaps  equally  safe  to  prophesy ; 
what  nobody  could  have  foreseen,  herself  least  of  all 
probably,  was  that  when  she  had  barely  arrived  at  the 
dignity  of  young-ladyhood  she  should  become  one  of 
the  most  famous  of  American  authors.  This  was  in 
part,  to  be  sure,  the  result  of  good  fortune,  but  it  was 
also  the  reward  of  earnest  endeavor  and  conscientious 
literary  workmanship. 

It  is  something  of  a  puzzle  to  one  who  now  reads 
"  The  Gates  Ajar  "  for  the  first  time,  and  even  to  one 
who  re-reads  it  after  many  years,  to  understand  the 
secret  of  its  immediate  and  wide  and  enduring  popu 
larity.  It  is  not  a  novel,  and  it  is  not  a  The  Gates 
religious  treatise,  but  something  half-way 
between  the  two.  It  might  be  described  as  a  sort  of 
prose  "  In  Memoriam  "  with  a  thread  of  story.  In  the 
form  of  a  diary  it  gives  the  meditations  and  expe 
riences  of  a  young  woman  who  has  lately  lost  a 
brother  to  whom  she  was  tenderly  attached.  The 
divine  purposes  in  the  affliction  of  men,  the  discipline 
of  sorrow,  the  grounds  of  faith  in  immortality,  the 
nature  of  the  future  life,  especially  the  latter,  are  the 
themes  to  which  attention  is  chiefly  directed.  These 
are  not  subjects  that  might  be  expected  to  rouse 
general  interest.  The  a  priori  reasoner  would  have 
been  likely  to  forecast  disaster,  or  at  best  a  very 


AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 


moderate  success,  for  any  book  that  discussed  ques 
tions  of  this  nature;  and  in  the  present  day  he  might 
be  right.  The  conditions  were  different,  however, 
twenty-five  years  ago.  As  is  the  case  with  all  greatly 
successful  books,  "  The  Gates  Ajar  "  struck  a  chord 
in  the  people's  hearts  that  only  needed  the  touch  of  a 
its  appeal  to  master's  hand  to  respond.  It  appeared  soon 
the  heart.  after  the  Q^J  Wafj  when  jn  almost  every 

household  there  was  still  mourning  for  some  loved 
and  lost  one.  Tens  of  thousands  of  sore  hearts  were 
asking  themselves  just  the  questions  that  the  supposi 
titious  writer  of  this  book  kept  asking.  If  Miss  Phelps 
did  not  give  a  final  reply  to  these  questionings,  she 
helped  many  to  a  stronger  faith  in  the  reality  and 
blessedness  of  the  future  life,  and  a  hope  of  reunion 
with  the  lost,  —  a  reunion  that  should  be  conscious, 
intelligent,  and  blissful,  as  well  as  unending.  She 
essayed,  and  with  much  success,  — 

"  To  pluck  the  amaranthine  flower 
Of  faith,  and  round  the  sufferer's  temples  bind 
Wreaths  that  endure  affliction's  heaviest  shower, 
And  do  not  shrink  from  sorrow's  keenest  wind." 

No  wonder,  therefore,  the  book  found  readers;  the 
seed  fell  into  good  soil,  already  prepared  for  it,  and 
that  it  should  germinate  and  fructify  was  in  the  ordi 
nary  course  of  nature. 

But  the  book  owed  its  great  vogue  to  another  cause, 
that  no  longer  exists.  In  the  sixties  what  passed  for 
orthodox  theology  was  practically  silent  about  the 


ELIZABETH  STUART  PHELPS.  \g\ 

future  life.  Beyond  maintaining  with  great  energy 
the  immortality  of  the  soul  and  the  eternal  Glimpses  of  the 
punishment  of  the  wicked,  it  practically  Slientworld 
ignored  all  the  questions  that  cluster  about  the  word 
"  eschatology."  Not  only  was  theology  silent  on  these 
themes,  but  the  pulpit  was  likewise  dumb.  Yet  the 
people  were  anxiously  questioning  and  doubting,  and 
from  the  source  to  which  they  might  naturally  have 
turned  for  light  they  met  with  chilling  silence  or  stern 
rebuke.  "  The  Gates  Ajar  "  boldly  attacked  problems 
that  the  pulpits  and  theological  chairs  feared  or 
ignored,  and  while  it  did  not  say  the  last  word  on 
any  of  them,  it  did  in  many  cases  say  what  was  to 
most  people  the  first  word  of  comfort  they  had  ever 
heard. 

These  papers  are  not  theological  disquisitions,  and 
it  is  not  necessary,  therefore,  to  discuss  the  grave 
question  whether  this  book  is,  as  has  been  so  often 
charged, "  tainted  with  Swedenborgianism."  Its  «  sweden- 
What  is  taken  for  Swedenborgianism  in  borsianisms-" 
the  book  of  Miss  Phelps,  by  those  who  interpret  every 
thing  with  absolute  literalism,  is  probably  nothing 
more  than  a  speaking  in  parables  on  her  part.  When 
she  says,  for  instance,  that  the  saints  will  have  pianos 
in  heaven,  only  the  literal-minded  will  mistake  her 
meaning,  —  such  people  as  cannot  appreciate  humor 
and  need  to  have  all  their  poetry  translated  into  bald 
prose  before  it  is  level  to  their  intellects.  In  the 
Revelation  we  read  of  harps  in  heaven,  and  if  the  harp 
of  the  first  century,  why  not  the  pianoforte  of  the 


AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 


nineteenth?  Things  like  this  mystified  some  readers 
and  disquieted  others,  but  it  is  not  likely  that  many 
were  stumbled  by  them.  At  all  events,  whatever 
incidental  harm  might  have  been  done  by  trifles  of 
this  sort  was  largely  overbalanced  by  the  great  and 
positive  good  accomplished  through  the  book. 


II. 

MlSS  PHELPS  deserved  her  suddenly  gained  fame, 
but  if  it  had  rested  on  no  other  basis  than  this  one 
book  it  would  have  proved  evanescent.  "  The  Gates 
Ajar  "  is  even  now,  one  fears,  mainly  of  historic  inter 
est.  Though  it  still  is  a  good  selling  book,  it  is  not 
so  completely  in  touch  with  the  spiritual  needs  of  the 

Not  a  sin  le  ^me  as  w^en  ^  was  ^rst  printed,  and  by 
success.  the  tjme  a  thjj.j  generation  of  readers  has 

come  on  the  stage  it  promises  to  be  outgrown.  This 
is  the  fate  of  books  that  address  themselves  to  reli 
gious  emotion  and  one  phase  of  religious  thought. 
It  was  an  open  question  in  her  case  whether  she  would 
be  content  with  this  fame,  or  would  strive  after  higher 
things.  A  first  great  triumph  like  this  may  have 
either  of  two  effects  on  the  writer,  especially  on  a 
young  and  impressionable  writer :  it  may  be  a  stimulus, 
or  a  paralysis.  In  far  too  many  cases  one  great  stroke 
of  fortune  either  puffs  a  writer  up  with  conceit  or  ter 
rifies  him  by  its  very  greatness,  so  that  he  is  never  fit 
for  a  higher  flight.  The  writer  who  has  in  him  the 


ELIZABETH  STUART  PHELPS.  193 

true  stuff,  while  grateful  for  the  praise  and  apprecia 
tion  that  he  has  won,  is  spurred  on  to  greater  industry 
and  more  concentrated  effort.  It  was  so  with  Miss 
Phelps.  She  was  neither  spoiled  nor  frightened,  but 
girded  herself  for  other  and  better  work.  For  fifteen 
years  she  abandoned  the  theme  through  which  she 
first  gained  the  ear  of  the  public,  and  devoted  herself 
to  fiction,  averaging  a  book  a  year  during  this  time. 
The  culmination  of  this  series  of  books  was  "  The 
Story  of  Avis,"  which,  in  the  minds  of  most  readers, 
will  long  continue  to  be  the  favorite,  though  one  or 
two  others  may  press  it  rather  closely. 

Miss  Phelps  is  equally  successful  as  a  writer  of 
short  stories  and  in  longer  tales.  She  has  become  a 
thorough  literary  workman,  and  she  never  slights  her 
work.  Her  plots  are  fairly  good,  though  never  com 
plicated,  and  she  peoples  her  books  with  persons 
whom  it  is  good  to  know.  Her  knowledge  of  human 
nature  is  respectably  wide  and  deep  ;  and  though  it 
does  not  impress  one  as  exhaustive,  it  is  satisfactory 
as  far  as  it  goes.  From  her  books  one  gets 

Her  short  tales. 

the  impression  that  she  has  lived  a  rather 
shut-in  life,  circumscribed  by  conditions  of  health  and 
of  family  duty  that  have  made  it  difficult  to  see  more 
than  a  small  part  of  the  world.  But  Miss  Phelps  cer 
tainly  knows  her  New  England  well ;  she  knows  the 
dialect,  the  customs,  the  ways  of  thinking,  the  spiritual 
needs  of  the  Yankee,  especially  the  Yankee  girl  and 
woman,  with  a  comprehensiveness  and  accuracy  that 
none  of  our  American  writers  surpasses.  It  is  per- 

13 


194  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 

haps  in  this  spiritual  knowledge  that  she  excels,  for 

she  is  — 

"  One  in  whom  persuasion  and  belief 
Had  ripened  into  faith,  and  faith  become 
A  passionate  intuition." 

All  her  stories  are  evidently  from  the  same  hand 
that  produced  "  The  Gates  Ajar;  "  she  could  be  con 
victed  of  their  authorship  on  internal  evidence  alone. 
The  conscience  of  the  woman  descended  from  the 
Puritans,  sensitive  and  introspective  to  morbidness,  is 
incarnate  in  her  books.  In  them  all  one  reads  the 
conviction  that  she  has  a  message  to  souls  diseased  or 
disquieted,  a  message  of  peace  and  comfort,  and  this 
message  she  has  managed  to  convey  through  her  fic 
tions  not  less  plainly  and  perhaps  more  effectively  to 
many  than  in  her  avowedly  didactic  books.  It  is  to 
her  praise  that  she  has  done  this  without  any  sacrifice 
of  artistic  purpose  and  method.  She  has  never 
stooped  to  the  writing  of  those  sermons  sugar-coated 
with  fiction,  that  have  brought  equal  discredit  on  two 
arts,  both  worthy  of  high  honor,  each  in  its  own 
sphere,  —  the  arts,  namely,  of  story-telling  and  of 
preaching. 

III. 

IT  would  be  remarkable,  indeed,  if  such  a  writer 
had  had  nothing  to  say  on  other  than  religious 
questions.  In  a  biographical  dictionary  of  some  pre 
tensions  it  is  said  of  Miss  Phelps :  "  Most  of  her  life 
has  been  devoted  to  benevolent  work  in  her  native 


ELIZABETH  STUART  P HELPS.  195 

town,  to  the  advancement  of  women,  and  to  temper 
ance  and  kindred  topics."  The  statement  may  not  be 
precisely  accurate,  yet  it  indicates  sufficiently  both  the 
breadth  of  her  sympathies  and  the  practical  form  in 
which  they  have  been  manifested.  She  ha."  written 
no  great  bulk  of  matter  on  temperance, 
but  a  book  of  hers,  "  Jack  the  Fisherman  " 
(1887),  is  one  of  the  most  impressive  temperance 
sermons  ever  preached,  —  all  the  more  effective  be 
cause  there  is  no  offensive  attempt  to  point  a  moral. 
Without  constituting  herself  a  common  literary  scold, 
her  pen  has  always  been  at  the  service  of  any  good 
cause,  and  she  has  been  prompt  to  defend  the  op 
pressed  and  the  friendless ;  and  if  she  does  not  actually 
enjoy  taking  the  unpopular  side,  at  least  she  never 
shrinks  from  it. 

Much  of  this  sort  of  writing  has  been  done  for  the 
newspapers.  Miss  Phelps  has  been  almost  as  in 
veterate  a  newspaper  contributor  as  her  father,  and 
both  have  been  nearly  worthy  of  the  appellation  of 
journalists.  In  years  past  a  number  of  "  the  Inde 
pendent  "  that  did  not  contain  an  article,  a  A  gentle. 
story,  or  a  poem  from  her  pen  was  rather  woman's  style> 
anomalous.  These  articles  were  and  are  invariably 
timely  and  readable,  whatever  their  other  character 
istics  may  be.  Miss  Phelps  could  not  be  her 
father's  daughter  and  write  bad  English,  but  style 
is  hardly  a  transmissible  endowment,  and  hers  is 
original.  One  can  describe  it  no  better  than  by 
saying  that  it  is  the  proper  style  of  a  gentlewoman, 


196  AMERICAN  WRITERS   OF   TO-DAY. 

refined,  reflecting  thought  and  study  without  pedan 
try,  occasionally  sparkling  with  wit,  oftener  glowing 
with  gentle  humor,  brilliant  and  vivacious  at  times, 
well-bred  and  urbane  always.  Mrs.  Burnett's  style 
one  calls  charming,  Miss  Phelps's  might  be  described 
as  interesting,  —  not  thereby  implying  that  the  one 
lacks  charm  or  the  other  interest,  but  in  each  case 
indicating  the  dominant  quality. 

Miss  Phelps  could  hardly  have  failed  to  write  on 
the  perennial  "  woman  question,"  born  as  she  was  at 
a  time  and  in  a  society  in  which  the  emancipation  of 
woman  was  a  burning  question.  It  is  noteworthy 
and  refreshing  to  mark  her  way  of  treating  it,  in 
contrast  with  the  method  of  another  New  England 
woman  of  letters,  "  Gail  Hamilton."  Miss  Dodge  is 
a  writer  who  may  be  compendiously  described  as 
"spicy."  -She  excels  in  vivacity  and  wit.  In  sar 
casm  and  invective  she  has  hardly  a  peer  among 
American  authors.  She  is  incisive,  even  combative, 
by  nature,  and  thoroughly  enjoys  a  good  hot  old- 
fashioned  controversy,  and  is  seldom  worsted  in  a 
The  woman  verbal  encounter.  Her  championship  of 
her  sex  and  its  cause  has  been  aggres 
sive,  defiant,  one  might  add  blustering  if  she  were 
a  man.  She  has  produced  essays  by  the  volume  on 
this  theme,  all  thoroughly  enjoyable  and  perhaps 
none  of  them  convincing.  Miss  Phelps  is  a  far  less 
pungent  writer,  —  the  difference  is  like  the  difference 
between  allspice  and  cayenne  pepper,  —  and  she  has 
made  fewer  formal  preachments  on  the  subject.  Her 


ELIZABETH  STUART  P  HELPS. 


most  characteristic  utterances  she  has  chosen  to  put 
in  the  garb  of  fiction,  and  her  say  on  the  woman 
question  may  be  found  in  "  An  Old  Maid's  Para- 
dise"  (1879),  and  its  sequel,  "  Burglars  in  Paradise" 
(1886),  and  "Dr.  Zay"  (1884).  The  latter  story 
shows  the  more  power.  The  author  evidently  holds 
fast  by  two  fundamental  principles.  The  first  is  that 
woman  has  the  same  right  to  the  higher  education 
and  an  independent  career  as  man,  provided  she 
wishes  it  and  evidences  the  capacity  for  it.  The 
second  is  that  for  the  majority  of  women  love  and 
marriage  are  predestined,  and  the  struggle  against 
this  manifest  destiny  for  a  separate  career  usually 
ends  in  surrender.  It  is  not  indiscreet,  one  hopes, 
to  add  that  the  author  showed  her  faith  in  this  teach 
ing  by  her  works,  when  in  1889  she  became  the  wife 
of  Mr.  Herbert  D.  Ward,  son  of  the  veteran  editor  of 
"  The  Independent."  We  are  not  informed  whether 
Dr.  Zay  continued  her  practice  after  marriage, 
but  Miss  Phelps  (as  an  author  she  will  always  be 
known  by  that  name)  has  continued  her  work. 
There  was  a  brief  attempt  at  collaboration  on  the 
part  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ward,  which  produced  "  The 
Master  of  the  Magicians"  (1890),  and  "Come 
Forth"  (1891).  This  experiment  can  hardly  be 
called  happy,  and  probably  the  authors  themselves 
have  so  concluded,  for  their  recent  work  has  been 
done  independently.  A  successful  literary  partner 
ship  is  one  of  the  rarest  things  in  literature. 


1 98  AMERICAN  WRITERS   OF   TO-DAY. 


IV. 


THE  industry  of  Miss  Phelps  —  she  is  the  author 
of  more  than  thirty  volumes,  the  first  of  which  was 
published  in  1864,  which  is  an  average  of  more  than 
a  volume  a  year  —  would  be  remarkable  in  any  case, 
but  is  astonishing  in  the  case  of  one  who  has  had  to 
contend  with  ill-health,  irritable  nerves,  and  insomnia. 
She  has  never  made  any  plaint,  never  asked  for  pub 
lic  sympathy,  or  made  a  claim  for  kinder 

Industry.  . 

judgment  on  this  score,  but  has  gone  on 
quietly  with  her  work.  It  is  impossible  not  to  ad 
mire  this  self-respecting  reticence,  and  the  indomi 
table  will  that  has  made  so  much  of  achievement 
possible.  The  fact  would  not  have  been  referred 
to  at  all,  in  spite  of  its  having  become  public  prop 
erty  long  ago,  but  that  it  affords  a  clue  to  the  better 
understanding  of  her  work.  There  is  in  her  books 
not  a  trace  of  the  morbidness  that  sometimes  accom 
panies  a  state  of  partial  invalidism,  but  it  is  not  fanci 
ful  to  ascribe  to  that  source  a  deep  thoughtfulness,  a 
spiritual  fervor  akin  to  mysticism,  a  rapt  assurance  of 
faith  that  only  those  know  who  have  been  made  to 
pass  through  deep  waters,  and  have  lived  much  alone 
with  themselves  and  God. 

If  there  is  a  touch  of  melancholy  in  any  of  Miss 
Phelps's  writings  it  is  in  her  verse.  Two  volumes 
have  been  issued:  "Poetic  Studies"  (1875),  and 
"Songs  of  the  Silent  World"  (1884).  It  is,  per- 


ELIZABETH  STUART  P HELPS.  199 

haps,  not  quite  just  to  speak  of  any  of  these  verses 
as  melancholy;  the  themes  are  generally  solemn, 
occasionally  sombre,  but  the  treatment  of  them  is 
not  gloomy.  The  verse  is  stately,  sober,  intense, 
but  not  frigid.  There  is  a  tone  of  religious  fervor, 
of  unswerving  faith  and  hope,  that  redeems  all  her 
poems  from  dismalness.  Those  who  glance  through 
these  volumes  for  the  first  time  will  per- 

Her  verse. 

haps  be  surprised  at  finding  so  large  a 
proportion  of  amatory  verse.  They  might,  indeed, 
be  entitled  "  Poems  of  Passion "  if  that  would  not 
provoke  comparison  with  another  collection  of  verse 
bearing  that  title.  The  passion  in  these,  poems  is  of 
the  genuine  kind,  strong,  sincere,  thrilling,  not  simu 
lated  and  theatrical.  It  does  not  demand  for  its 
expression  language  that  borders  on  indecency,  but 
flows  — 

"In  numbers  warmly  pure  and  sweetly  strong." 

The  substance  of  her  verse  is  so  solid,  her  work 
manship  is  so  conscientious  always  and  so  exquisite 
frequently,  that  Miss  Phelps  should  be  better  known 
as  a  poet.  And  yet,  if  intelligent  readers  were  asked 
to  make  a  list  of  living  American  poets  probably  few 
of  the  lists  would  contain  the  name  of  Miss  Phelps. 
This  is  presumably  due  largely  to  the  character  of 
the  subjects  she  has  chosen  to  treat,  to  the  prevail 
ing  religious  tone  of  her  verse,  and  to  the  almost 
total  absence  of  playfulness,  of  wit  and  humor,  and 
of  that  //'//  that  catches  the  popular  ear  and  gains 


200  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

currency  for  work  otherwise  very  indifferent.  Her 
poems  are  of  a  kind  that  only  the  cultivated,  the 
thoughtful,  the  Christian  reader,  can  fully  compre 
hend,  and  this  necessarily  implies  a  limited  audience. 

Of  all  our  American  women  of  letters  Miss  Phelps 
impresses  one  as  the  most  intense,  the  most  high- 
purposed,  the  most  conscientious  in  her  art.  Litera 
ture  is  with  her  something  more  dignified  than  a 
means  of  livelihood,  or  a  path  to  fame ;  it  is  the  high 
calling  of  God  to  glorify  him  and  to  serve  her  fellow- 
man.  She  is  entitled  to  the  praise  of  having  faith 
fully  tried  to  fulfil  this  noble  ideal.  The  world  is  not 
worse,  but  better,  for  every  line  she  has  written. 


XII. 

ADELINE   D.  T.  WHITNEY. 

FEW  writers  of  stories  have  a  larger  circle  of 
admirers  than  Mrs.  Whitney,  and  though  her 
books  are  chiefly  about  young  people  and  for  young 
people,  she  has  found  no  lack  of  appreciative  readers 
among  adults.  There  is  in  her  books,  in  truth,  a 
knowledge  of  men  and  women,  a  philosophy  of  life, 
a  humor,  that  cannot  be  fully  appreciated  by  imma 
ture  minds,  though  they  may  feel  the  charm  of  these 
as  well  as  be  fascinated  by  other  qualities  that  lie 
closer  to  the  surface.  Much  as  she  has  written, 
there  is  very  little  to  be  found  in  the  way  of  criti 
cism  of  Mrs.  Whitney's  work,  apart  from  Her«Com- 
ephemeral  and  usually  rather  perfunctory  Plete"works 
notices  in  newspapers  and  periodicals  of  her  books 
as  they  have  appeared.  The  appearance  of  a  new 
uniform  edition  of  her  writings,  in  the  tasteful  style 
for  which  the  Riverside  Press  is  justly  famous,  of 
fered  a  favorable  opportunity  for  a  critical  study  of 
their  contents.  A  somewhat  formidable  row  they 
make,  these  seventeen  volumes  gowned  in  green, 
witnessing  to  the  writer's  diligence  and  putting  that 
of  the  critic  to  a  considerable  test,  unless  he  happen 
to  have  read  most  of  them  before. 


2O2  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 


I. 

ADELINE  BUTTON  TRAIN  is  a  native  of  Boston, 
and  spent  her  early  life  in  that  city.  Her  father, 
Enoch  Train,  was  a  successful  man  of  business,  the 
founder  of  a  line  of  packet-ships  between  Boston  and 
Liverpool,  in  the  palmy  days  when  the  American 
Abriefbiog-  clipper  was  the  queen  of  the  seas.  The 
raphy.  brilliant,  eccentric,  erratic  George  Francis 

Train  is  her  brother.  The  vein  of  mysticism  in  the 
writings  of  the  sister  has  cropped  out  into  something 
very  like  insanity  in  the  brother,  but  the  native  men 
tal  gifts  of  both  were  far  above  the  common  and  also 
out  of  the  common. 

No  doubt  some  of  Mrs.  Whitney's  stories  contain 
a  large  element  of  autobiography,  but  only  she  and 
her  nearest  friends  could  tell  where  history  ends  and 
fiction  begins  in  her  Faith  Gartneys  and  Leslie  Gold- 
thwaites.  It  would  be  perilous  to  attempt  disentan 
gling  the  two  during  her  lifetime ;  but  in  after  years 
the  "  higher  critic  "  may  disport  himself  in  recon 
structing  the  story  of  her  girlhood  from  the  internal 
evidence  afforded  by  her  writings.  What  we  now 
know  certainly  is,  that  before  her  girlhood  was  well 
passed,  at  the  age  of  nineteen  in  fact,  Miss  Train 
became  the  wife  of  Seth  D.  Whitney,  of  Milton, 
Mass.,  and  has  lived  a  quiet  home  life  in  that  town 
ever  since.  Mrs.  Whitney  has,  it  would  appear,  stu 
diously  avoided  putting  her  personality  in  evidence 


ADELINE  £>.   T.   WHITNEY.  2O3 

before  the  public.  She  has  virtually  said,  "  My 
books  belong  to  the  world,  my  life  belongs  to  my 
self,  my  family,  my  friends."  It  is  the  duty  of  the 
critic  to  respect  this  reticence,  and  to  inquire  no  fur 
ther  into  the  personality  of  the  writer  than  the  writ 
ings  themselves  fairly  warrant  one  in  going.  What 
of  herself  she  has  put  into  print  is  ours  to  know  and 
to  discuss.  The  rest  belongs  to  the  privacy  of  a 
gentlewoman,  that  nobody  has  a  right  to  invade. 

II. 

AT  the  very  outset  one  is  tempted  to  break  one's 
good  resolution  not  to  go  behind  the  facts  of  record, 
because  the  first  fact  arouses  a  curiosity  that  is  not 
altogether  impertinent.  Mrs.  Whitney's  first  recorded 
publication  is  a  poem,  "  Footsteps  on  the  Beganasa 
Seas"  (Boston,  1857).  As  she  has  per-  poet- 
mitted  the  date  of  her  birth  to  become  part  of  her 
public  record,  it  cannot  be  indiscreet  to  remark  that 
the  writer  of  this  poem  was  already  in  her  thirties, 
and  to  add  that  most  of  our  American  men  and 
women  of  letters  have  shown  the  symptoms  of  the 
pen-and-ink  disease  at  a  much  earlier  period.  Hence 
one's  curiosity :  did  Mrs.  Whitney  have  literary  am 
bitions,  and  do  the  usual  preparatory  scribbling  in 
her  early  years;  or  did  she  (as  we  know  was  the  case 
with  "  H.  H.")  make  her  first  real  essays  in  literature 
after  she  had  reached  middle  life?  This  first  publi 
cation  of  Mrs.  Whitney's,  few  of  her  admirers  have 


204  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

ever  seen,  and  it  is  not  included  in  this  last  edition 
of  her  works,  from  which  one  might  be  justified  in 
inferring  a  fixed  intention  to  disown  this  bantling, 
were  not  four  other  volumes  of  her  verses  also 
omitted. 

The  second  book  published  by  her  still  holds  the 
field,  "  Mother  Goose  for  Grown  Folks"  (New  York, 
1860),  and  is  deservedly  a  favorite  with  all  her 
readers.  In  a  revised,  enlarged,  and  glorified  form 
—  illustrated,  that  is  to  say,  by  Augustus  Hoppin  — 
it  has  a  place  in  the  latest  edition  of  her 

Mother  Goose. 

writings.  It  is  really  a  very  clever  book. 
In  the  main  aspiring  to  be  nothing  more  than  ajeu 
d* esprit,  not  professing  to  possess  high  poetic  merit, 
and  somewhat  careless  as  to  workmanship,  its  play 
fulness  and  wit  mask  a  good  deal  of  serious  purpose. 
For  example,  these  stanzas  suggested  by  the  familiar 
"  Rockaby  baby  " :  — 

"  O  golden  gift  of  childhood  ! 

That,  with  its  kingly  touch, 
Transforms  to  more  than  royalty 

The  thing  it  loveth  much  ! 
O  second  sight,  bestowed  alone 

Upon  the  baby  seer, 
That  the  glory  held  in  Heaven's  reserve 

Discerneth  even  here ! 

"  O  golden  gift  of  childhood ! 
If  the  talisman  might  last, 
How  dull  the  Present  still  should  gleam 
With  the  glory  of  the  Past. 


ADELINE  D.   T.   WHITNEY.  2O$ 

But  the  things  of  earth  about  us 

Fade  and  dwindle  as  we  go, 
And  the  long  perspective  of  our  life 

Is  truth,  and  not  a  show  !  " 

Very  amusing  is  "  Brahmic,"  her  parody  on  Emer 
son's  celebrated  "  Brahma,"  which  she  ingeniously 
turns  into  praise  of  Mother  Goose :  — 

"  If  a  great  poet  think  he  sings, 

Or  if  the  poem  think  it 's  sung, 
They  do  but  sport  the  scattered  plumes 
That  Mother  Goose  aside  hath  flung. 

"  Far  or  forgot  to  me  is  near  : 

Shakespeare  and  Punch  are  all  the  same ; 
The  vanished  thoughts  do  reappear, 
And  shape  themselves  to  fun  or  fame." 

In  later  years  Mrs.  Whitney  has  published  four 
small  collections  of  verse  :  "  Pansies  "  (1872),  "  Holy- 
tides"  (1886),  and  "Bird  Talk"  and  "Daffodils" 
(1887).  None  of  these  is  included  in  the  present 
collection  of  her  writings.  Of  her  verse  as  a  whole, 
it  is  not  unjust  to  say  that  the  public  is  right  in  not 
esteeming  it  as  her  chief  title  to  fame.  It  shows 
talents  that,  devoted  exclusively  to  this  kind  of  com 
position,  might  have  given  her  high  rank  among  the 
poets  of  America,  since  the  conception  of  her  poems 
is  usually  much  above  the  formal  embodiment  of  it. 
Most  of  her  verse  is  contemplative,  religious,  with  a 
tinge  of  mysticism.  Her  tendency  is  to  see  the 
hidden  meaning,  not  in  some  things,  but  in  every 
thing  — 


206  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

"  As  the  Swedish  seer  contends, 
All  things  comprise  an  inner  sense." 

This,  which  doubtless  constitutes  the  charm  of  her 
verses  to  readers  like-minded,  is  rather  a  bar  to  the 
appreciation  of  them  by  the  many. 

III. 

IT  was  not  until  the  publication  of  "  Boys  at  Che- 
quasset,"  in  1862,  that  Mrs.  Whitney  really  found  her 
vocation.  She  has  done  much  better  work  since,  but 
Finding  her  that  story  is  still  as  fresh  and  pleasing  as 
vocation.  when  it  was  written.  Her  portrait  of 
"  Johnnie,"  the  careless,  slovenly,  hurry-scurry  boy, 
is  true  to  the  life,  and  the  process  of  his  reformation 
is  ingeniously  worked  out,  without  too  great  a  draft 
on  one's  credulity  or  the  making  of  him  into  a  hate 
ful  prig.  Five  books  then  followed  in  quick  succes 
sion,  of  which  to  this  day  many  of  the  author's  readers 
do  not  know  which  is  their  favorite :  "  Faith  Gart- 
ney's  Girlhood"  (1863);  "  The  Gayworthys"  (1865); 
"A  Summer  in  Leslie  Goldthwaite's  Life"  (1866); 
"  Patience  Strong's  Outings"  (1868);  and  "  Hitherto" 
(1869).  Mrs.  Whitney  may  have  done  as  good  work 
since,  —  opinions  might  conceivably  differ  as  to  that, 
—  but  probably  nobody  will  affirm  that  she  has  done 
better  work  than  in  these  five  stories.  They  mark 
the  summit  of  her  achievement  in  fiction,  and  by 
them  the  quality  and  value  of  that  achievement  may 
be  fairly  tested. 


ADELINE  D.   T.   WHITNEY.  2O? 

The  first  and  most  vivid  impression  made  by  these 
books  is  that  their  author  knows  how  to  tell  a  story. 
This  is  not  so  common  a  faculty  as  might  be  sup 
posed.  Some  of  the  greatest  novelists  have  lacked  it. 
Some  have  been  destitute  of  it  altogether, 

,      ,  ,  .      .  i      A  story-teller. 

and  are  great  nevertheless,  but  their  ad 
mirers  are  comparatively  few.  A  writer  with  some 
thing  of  Scott's  gift  of  story-telling  can  win  the  hearts 
of  his  readers  though  he  fail  in  pretty  much  every 
thing  else,  while  one  who  has  this  talent  in  small 
measure  must  have  shining  gifts  indeed  to  compen 
sate  for  its  absence.  Mrs.  Whitney  gets  the  reader's 
attention  at  the  outset  and  holds  it  by  the  interest  of 
her  story.  But  this  is  by  no  means  her  only  hold  on 
the  reader;  she  has  the  power  of  characterization,  of 
making  us  believe  in  the  solid  reality  of  the  person 
ages  with  whom  she  peoples  her  books.  Scott's 
books  are  fascinating  for  their  stories,  but  could 
anything  be  more  shadowy  and  unsubstantial  than 
his  Ivanhoes  and  Quentin  Durwards,  his  Peverils 
and  Guy  Mannerings?  Who  ever  thinks  of  them  as 
he  thinks  of  Falstafif  and  Hamlet,  and  in  a  less  degree 
of  Faith  Gartney  and  Patience  Strong?  Mrs.  Whit 
ney's  readers  have  been  known  to  hold  long  discus 
sions  regarding  the  people  of  her  stories,  in  which 
their  actions  and  characters  were  canvassed  and  com 
pared,  and  such  discussions  sometimes  have  waxed 
warm.  People  do  not  work  themselves  into  a  state 
of  high  moral  indignation  over  personages  of  a  novel, 
unless  the  author  has  a  large  measure  of  creative 


208  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-LAY. 

power,  and  so  makes  her  pen-and-ink  men  and 
women  as  real  as  flesh  and  blood  to  her  readers. 

The  power  of  these  books  is  largely  due  to  their 
style.  How  Mrs.  Whitney  might  write  if  she  at 
tempted  something  in  prose  outside  of  fiction,  one  can 
only  guess.  In  that  case  her  work  might  or  might 
not  deserve  to  be  commended  for  its  literary  graces. 
The  quality  of  her  style  that  gives  it  savor  and  effec 
tiveness  in  her  stories  is  its  homeliness. 

Her  homely 

style.  c^    does    not  disdain  the  vocabulary  of 

ordinary  every-day  life,  the  English  that  New  England 
people  use  when  they  are  not  trying  to  be  elegant 
and  to  "  speak  good  grammar."  She  writes  as 
simply,  unaffectedly,  and  directly  as  people  talk, 
and  this  naturalness  goes  a  long  way  towards  nc'i 
merely  explaining  but  justifying  her  popularity. 
Her  young  readers  feel  the  value  of  this  quality 
without  being  sufficiently  analytic  to  tell  what  it  is ; 
and  her  older  readers,  enjoying  it  more  understand- 
ingly,  know  it  to  be  a  gift  that  only  a  few  American 
writers  possess.  The  bane  of  modern  literature  is 
self-consciousness  and  affectation ;  if  Mrs.  Whitney's 
unconsciousness  of  self  is  the  result  of  study  and 
labor,  she  has  indeed  mastered  that  last  secret  of 
art,  apparent  artlessness. 

Lively  sallies  of  wit  are  not  so  common  in  these 

stories  as  that  quiet,  rather  dry  humor,  born  of  native 

shrewdness   and   close   observation,  which 

distinguishes   the   Yankee.      Emery   Ann 

is  nearly  as  keen  as  the  more  famous  Mrs.  Poyser, 


ADELINE  D.  T.   WHITNEY.  2OQ 

and  a  good  deal  more  droll ;  and  there  are  other 
characters  nearly  her  equal.  She  lacks  the  poetic 
insight,  the  touch  of  genius,  that  Mr.  Lowell  has 
infused  into  Hosea  Biglow,  but  in  other  traits  she 
is  his  literary  twin-sister.  Genuine  humor  is  a  rare 
quality  in  women  who  write  novels,  and  one  ought 
to  be  proportionately  grateful  when  he  finds  it  so 
plentiful  and  of  so  high  quality  as  in  Mrs.  Whitney's 
books. 

This  leaves  for  mention  at  the  very  last,  what  many 
would  put  first  of  all,  the  religious  tone  of  these  and 
other  stories  by  Mrs.  Whitney.  Some 

Religious  tone. 

readers  do  not  value  this  part  of  her 
work  so  highly,  for  several  reasons.  One  is  that 
the  writer  too  often  makes  her  books  and  even  her 
characters  "  preachy."  This  is  always  bad  art,  but 
it  is  also  bad  from  the  moralist's  point  of  view,  be 
cause  it  is  comparatively  ineffective.  The  only  moral 
worth  inculcating  in  a  work  of  fiction  is  one  that  does 
not  need  to  be  inculcated,  —  the  impression  that  the 
simple  telling  of  the  story,  the  mere  working  out  of 
character,  the  unavoidable  results  of  wrong-doing 
and  the  equally  certain  reward  of  goodness,  make 
upon  the  reader  without  the  author's  comment.  It 
is  only  the  crude  beginner  in  art  who  needs  to  put 
beneath  his  picture,  "  This  is  a  horse,"  and  there  is 
something  wrong  about  a  story  if  its  moral  must  be 
impressed  on  the  reader  by  little  preachments,  whether 
the  author's  own  or  put  into  the  mouths  of  her  char 
acters.  Many  sayings  in  Mrs.  Whitney's  books  that 


210  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

would  be  admirable  in  a  book  of  moral  maxims,  or  in 
a  collection  of  religious  meditations,  are  better  fitted 
to  provoke  the  scoffer  than  to  comfort  and  strengthen 
the  saint,  in  their  present  location. 

Another  fact  that  lessens  the  appreciation  of  some 
for  the  religious  element  of  these  stories  has  already 
been  mentioned  in  another  connection, — their  fre- 
Hermysti-  quent,  not  to  say  prevailing,  tone  of  mys 
ticism.  The  trail  of  Emanuel  Swedenborg 
is  over  them  all.  Swedenborg  is  the  one  great  re 
ligious  writer  —  one  calls  him  great  in  deference  to 
the  opinions  of  others  —  from  whom  many  would 
confess  without  shame  that  they  have  never  been 
able  to  extract  the  least  profit,  and  barely  the  sem 
blance  of  an  idea.  It  is  difficult  to  have  patience 
with  anybody  who  pretends  to  understand  him,  or 
to  extract  profound  truths  from  his  chaos  of  words. 
His  mysticism  seems  only  one  degree  more  intellec 
tually  respectable  than  theosophy.  There  are  mul 
titudes  of  readers  of  Mrs.  Whitney  in  such  case.  It 
may  argue  a  defect  of  mind  or  of  soul  in  them  that 
they  are  unable  to  see  the  thing  that  is  not,  —  let 
us  grant  this  to  be  the  case;  but  because  of  this 
defect  they  cannot  find  in  a  considerable  part  of 
Mrs.  Whitney's  religious  teachings  the  comfort 
and  inspiration  that  some  profess  to  derive  from 
them. 

Mrs.  Whitney's  books  for  many  years  showed  a 
growing  artistic  power.      The  "  preachy "  tone  she 


ADELINE  D.   T.   WHITNEY.  211 

outgrew  in  good  part,  and  with  experience  in  author 
ship  her  touch  became  more  sure,  her  mastery  of  her 
materials  more  complete.  Her  last  books,  A  growing 
if  they  have  not  greatly  surpassed  the  power- 
others,  have  at  least  shown  no  waning  of  her  powers ; 
and  in  some  of  them  she  has  shown  her  ability  to 
write  about  and  for  others  than  young  people.  Pre 
dictions  regarding  the  future  rank  of  the  authors  of 
our  own  day  are  about  as  valuable  as  the  "  oldest 
inhabitant's"  confident  remarks  about  to-morrow's 
weather,  but  there  seems  to  be  no  good  reason  to 
question  that  Mrs.  Whitney's  books  will  continue  to 
instruct  and  delight  more  than  one  generation  of 
Americans  after  all  her  present  readers  are  gathered 
to  their  fathers. 


XIII. 

BRET   HARTE. 

NOTHING  in  the  history  of  this  Western  world 
is  more  romantic  than  the  story  of  California. 
Though  it  was  early  settled  by  Spaniards,  it  had 
little  part  in  the  life  of  this  continent,  until  the 
revolutionary  action  of  "The  Pathfinder"  secured 
its  addition  to  the  Union.  Even  then  its  develop- 
The  Argonauts  ment  would  have  becm  slow,  in  the 
of>49<  natural  course  of  events,  but  events  did 

not  take  their  natural  course.  The  discovery  of 
gold  precipitated  upon  the  Pacific  coast  a  horde  of 
adventurous  spirits,  and  California  advanced  by 
great  leaps  towards  civilization  and  Statehood.  In 
a  single  generation  the  work  of  centuries  was 
accomplished.  Cities  sprang  up  as  if  built  by  the 
slaves  of  Aladdin's  lamp.  Forests  were  hewn 
down,  and  what  forests !  Vast  engineering  enter 
prises  were  undertaken  and  accomplished;  railways 
were  built,  mountains  were  tunnelled,  rivers  were 
bridged,  streams  were  turned  from  their  beds  to  do 
the  bidding  of  man.  Those  who  made  this  new 
commonwealth  out  of  a  wilderness  were  no  weak 
lings.  The  difficulties  of  the  overland  trail  and  of 


BRET  HARTE.  21$ 


the  Cape  Horn  voyage  produced  a  natural  selection 
of  the  fittest.  As  their  best  historian  tells  us: 
"The  faith,  courage,  vigor,  youth,  and  capacity  for 
adventure  necessary  to  this  emigration  produced  a 
body  of  men  as  strongly  distinctive  as  the  com 
panions  of  Jason.  Unlike  most  pioneers,  the 
majority  were  men  of  profession  and  education; 
all  were  young,  and  all  had  staked  their  fortune  in 
the  enterprise.  .  .  .  Eastern  magazines  and  current 
Eastern  literature  formed  their  literary  recreation, 
and  the  sale  of  the  better  class  of  periodicals  was 
singularly  great.  .  .  .  The  author  records  that  he 
has  experienced  more  difficulty  in  procuring  a  copy 
of  'Punch  '  in  an  English  provincial  town  than  was 
his  fortune  at  'Red  Dog  '  or  '  One-Horse  Gulch.'  " 
Thrown  upon  their  own  resources  altogether, 
separated  by  almost  the  breadth  of  a  continent  from 
civilization,  these  new-comers  rapidly  developed 
social  and  moral  standards  of  their  own,  improvised 
laws  for  their  government,  and  executed  these  laws 
with  such  celerity,  impartiality,  and  substantial 
equity  as  civilized  jurisprudence  may  envy  but  can 
hardly  hope  to  surpass.  Though  the  A  picturesque 
majority  of  these  Argonauts  were  men  era< 
of  education  and  conscience,  there  was  a  strong 
sprinkling  of  the  vicious,  the  degraded,  the  crimi 
nal  classes  among  them.  Freed  from  artificial 
restraints,  and  from  the  softening  influences  of 
womankind,  the  natural  man  showed  himself  in 
this  pioneer  life,  and  made  of  it  something  wilder, 


214  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 

more  picturesque,  more  individual  in  flavor  than 
has  been  known  elsewhere  on  this  continent,  —  the 
like  of  which  has,  indeed,  seldom  been  seen  any 
where.  It  was  altogether  fitting  that  this  pioneer 
life,  with  its  vices  and  its  virtues,  should  be  em 
balmed  in  literature;  and  the  man  for  the  times 
was  found  in  a  young  printer  of  San  Francisco. 


FRANCIS  BRET  HARTE  — he  has  of  late  years 
dropped  the  first  of  these  names,  presumably  given 
Birth  and  boy-  nim  bv  nis  sponsors  in  baptism  — was 
hooA  born  in  Albany,  August  25,  1839.  His 

father  was  a  teacher  in  the  Female  Seminary  of 
that  city,  which  was  then  one  of  the  noted  schools 
of  the  State.  He  was  a  man  of  culture  and  taste, 
but  died  when  his  son  was  a  mere  lad,  leaving  his 
family  unprovided  for.  Why  his  widow  should 
have  gone  to  California  in  1854  is  not  recorded, 
and  such  a  course  on  her  part  baffles  conjecture; 
but  go  she  did,  and  the  youthful  Bret  went  with 
her,  to  his  own  ultimate  good  fortune,  and  the 
greater  fortune  of  American  literature.  The  boy, 
under  these  circumstances,  was  unusually  lucky 
to  get  even  the  common-school  education  that  we 
are  assured  he  received;  and  at  no  advanced  age, 
we  may  be  sure,  he  was  compelled  to  look  out  for 
himself.  His  first  experiment  in  this  line  is  said 
to  have  been  in  his  father's  footsteps;  he  walked 


BRET  HARTE.  215 


from  San  Francisco  to  Sonora  and  opened  a  school. 
This  enterprise  was  unsuccessful,  — not,  we  may 
be  sure,  owing  to  lack  of  push  and  zeal  in  the 
teacher,  —  and  he  next  turned  his  attention  to  min 
ing.  Failing  in  this  also,  he  thereupon  obtained 
employment  in  a  printing-office  and  became  a 
compositor. 

From  type-setting  to  literature  is  but  a  short 
step,  and  Bret  Harte  was  not  long  in  taking  it.  In 
a  lately  printed  newspaper  "  interview  "  he  has  told 
us  of  a  still  earlier  literary  venture  of  his, — a 
poem  called  "Autumn  Musings."  He  remarks  that 
"  it  was  written  at  the  mature  age  of  eleven.  It 
was  satirical  in  character,  and  cast  upon  the  fading 
year  the  cynical  light  of  my  repressed  dis-  First  attempt 
satisfaction  with  things  in  general.  I  atwritins- 
addressed  the  envelope  to  the  'New  York  Sunday 
Atlas,'  at  that  time  a  journal  of  some  literary 
repute  in  New  York,  where  I  was  then  living. 

"I  was  not  quite  certain  how  the  family  would 
regard  this  venture  on  my  part,  and  I  posted  the 
missive  with  the  utmost  secrecy.  After  that  I 
waited  for  over  a  week  in  a  state  of  suspense  that 
entirely  absorbed  me.  Sunday  came,  and  with  it 
the  newspapers.  These  were  displayed  on  a  stand 
on  the  street  near  our  house,  and  held  in  their 
places  —  I  shall  never  forget  them  —  with  stones. 
With  an  unmoved  face,  but  a  beating  heart,  I 
scanned  the  topmost  copy  of  the  'Atlas.'  To  my 
dying  day  I  shall  remember  the  thrill  that  came 


2l6  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

from  seeing  'Autumn  Musings,'  a  poem,  on  the 
first  page.  I  don't  know  that  the  headline  type 
was  any  larger  than  usual,  but  to  me  it  was  colossal. 
It  had  something  of  the  tremendousness  of  a  three- 
sheet  poster.  I  bought  the  paper  and  took  it  home. 
I  exhibited  it  to  the  family  by  slow  and  cautious 
/stages.  My  hopes  sank  lower  and  lower.  At  last 
{  realized  the  enormity  of  my  offence.  The  lamen 
tation  was  general.  It  was  unanimously  conceded 
that  I  was  lost,  and  I  fully  believed  it.  My  idea 
of  a  poet  —  it  was  the  family's  idea  also  —  was  the 
Hogarthian  one,  born  of  a  book  of  Hogarth's  draw 
ings  belonging  to  my  father.  In  the  lean  and 
miserable  and  helpless  guise  of  'The  Distressed 
Poet,'  as  therein  pictured,  I  saw,  aided  by  the 
family,  my  probable  future.  It  was  a  terrible 
experience.  I  sometimes  wonder  that  I  ever  wrote 
another  line  of  verse." 

Budding  genius  is  not  to  be  so  lightly  repressed, 
however,  and  Harte  had  not  set  type  long  before  he 
had  aspirations  after  the  higher  walks  of  journalism. 
His  first  articles  were  composed  at  the  case,  with 
out  the  intervention  of  a  manuscript,  and  these  con 
tributions  apparently  found  favor  with  his  superiors, 
for  during  the  absence  of  the  editor  he  was  some 
what  rashly  put  in  charge  of  the  paper.  The  sub 
scribers  were  largely  miners,  and  some  of  the  young 
editor's  squibs  so  seriously  offended  them  that 
there  was  a  hasty  return  of  the  editor  and  an  abrupt 
termination  of  the  young  man's  editorial  experi- 


BRET  HARTE.  21? 


ence.  He  had  however,  found  his  vocation,  though, 
for  a  time,  he  was  himself  but  half-conscious  of  the 
fact. 

II. 

DRIFTING  back  to  San  Francisco,  Mr.  Harte  found 
employment  as  a  compositor  on  the  "Golden  Era." 
A  young  author  who  has  once  seen  himself  in  print, 
is  no  more  to  be  restrained  from  gratify-  From«case" 
ing  his  passion  than  a  young  tiger  who  todesk> 
has  for  the  first  time  tasted  blood.  There  began  to 
appear  in  the  "  Golden  Era "  anonymous  sketches 
of  frontier  and  mining  life,  and  the  conductors  of 
the  paper  were  not  long  in  making  inquiries  about 
their  authorship.  When  the  young  type-setter  was 
discovered  to  be  the  guilty  man,  he  was  invited  to 
lay  down  his  "stick"  ajid  take  up  the  pen.  His 
editorial  experience  here  was  not  long,  however, 
for  we  find  him  soon  after  in  charge  of  a  literary 
weekly,  called  the  "San  Francisco  Californian." 
It  was  in  this  paper  that  his  clever  "  Condensed 
Novels  "  first  made  their  appearance. 

However  cultivated  Californians  may  have  been 
in  the  sixties,  and  however  well  they  may  have 
patronized  the  literary  periodicals  of  the  East,  and 
even  of  Europe,  they  do  not  appear  to  have  appre 
ciated  their  home  product.  "The  Californian" 
lived  for  a  time  at  a  poor  dying  rate,  and  at  length 
ceased  to  live  at  all.  Mr.  Harte  then  secured,  in 
1864,  an  appointment  as  secretary  of  the  United 


2l8  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

States  Mint  in  San  Francisco,  a  post  that  he  con 
tinued  to  hold  for  six  years,  with  satisfaction  to 
himself  and  his  superior  officers.  His  duties  were 
not  so  onerous  that  he  was  unable  to  continue  his 
literary  labors;  on  the  contrary,  he  wrote  steadily, 
if  not  profusely,  and  laid  the  foundations 

Writes  poems. 

of  his  reputation  as  a  poet.  "John  Burns 
of  Gettysburg,"  justly  esteemed  one  of  his  best 
poems,  belongs  to  this  period;  so  does  "The  Society 
upon  the  Stanislaus,"  one  of  the  best  known  and 
most  frequently  quoted  of  his  humorous  poems. 
There  are  few,  even  of  those  inveterate  newspaper 
readers  that  seldom  look  into  a  book,  who  have  not 
heard  of  the  animated  debate  provoked  in  that  grave 
society  by  Mr.  Brown's  discovery  of  some  fossil 
bones,  or  the  sad  fate  of  one  man,  when — 

"  A  chunk  of  old  red  sandstone,  took  him  in  the  abdomen, 
And  he  smiled  a  kind  of  sickly  smile,  and  curled  up  on  the 

floor, 
And  the  subsequent  proceedings  interested  him  no  more." 

These  poems  were  first  published  in  the  San  Fran 
cisco  newspapers,  but  they  caught  the  public  fancy 
and  were  widely  copied,  giving  the  author  his  first 
taste  of  a  continental  fame. 

It  is  a  curious  fact,  and  one  on  which  Mr.  Harte 
himself  dwells  with  bitter  philosophy,  that  his 
without  honor  efforts  to  portray  the  pioneer  life  that  he 

in  his  own 

country.  knew  so  well,  whether  in  prose  or  verse, 

met  with  little  local  reward.  Of  reward  in  the 
shape  of  hard  cash,  we  are  justified  in  believing 


BRET  HARTE.  2IQ 


that  they  received  nothing  at  all.  Of  praise  they 
received  only  just  enough  to  keep  the  author  from 
throwing  down  his  pen  in  despair.  The  educated 
men  of  California  had  been  trained  in  a  different 
school  of  literature;  their  taste  had  been  formed  on 
the  English  and  American  classics.  Shakespeare 
they  knew,  and  Wordsworth,  and  Bryant,  and  Poe, 
but  who  was  this  upstart,  with  his  mixture  of  local 
slang  and  queer  morals,  to  deserve  their  admiration  ? 
Once  more  a  prophet  had  appeared  to  make  good 
the  ancient  saying;  and  it  was  not  until  the  plaudits 
of  the  cultured  East  greeted  Bret  Harte  as  the 
rising  star  of  a  new  literature  that  he  found  honor 
in  his  own  country.  By  that  time  he  had  shaken 
the  dust  of  California  from  his  feet  forever. 

This  is,  however,  to  anticipate  our  story  some 
what.  In  July,  1868,  was  begun  the  publication  of 
"The  Overland  Monthly,"  a  somewhat  Aneditor 
ambitious  periodical  that  aspired  to  be 
for  the  Pacific  coast  what  "The  Atlantic  Monthly" 
had  become  for  the  East.  Mr.  Harte  had  so  far 
established  his  reputation  that  he  was  indicated  to 
the  publisher  as  the  best  man  to  conduct  the  edi 
torial  part  of  the  new  enterprise.  It  seemed  to  the 
editor  to  be  a  defect  in  the  first  number  published 
that  it  contained  no  romance  distinctively  Cali- 
fornian;  and  accordingly  he  set  himself  to  work  to 
remedy  the  defect.  "  The  Luck  of  Roaring  Camp  " 
was  the  result  of  his  labors.  Having  sent  the 
manuscript  to  the  printer,  the  editor-author  was 


220  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY 

fairly  entitled  to  consider  his  work  ended,  but  it 
turned  out  to  be  just  begun.  One  who  reads  the 
story  now  can  hardly  credit  the  account  of  the  row 
that  was  raised  over  its  publication.  The  trouble 
was  begun  by  the  proof-reader,  and  the  printer  took 
the  extraordinary  course  of  returning  the  proofs, 
not  to  the  editor,  but  to  the  publisher,  with  the 
emphatic  declaration  that  the  matter  was  "so  in 
decent,  irreligious,  and  improper,"  that  his  reader 
(a  young  woman)  had  with  difficulty  been  induced 
to  continue  its  perusal.  One  can  hardly  credit, 
also,  that  such  a  characterization  of  the  story 
received  the  least  attention  from  the  publisher, 
still  less  that  it  produced  an  acute  editorial  crisis. 
Such,  however,  we  are  assured  by  Mr.  Harte,  was 
the  fact  Ultimately  the  publisher  decided  to  stand 
by  the  literary  judgment  of  his  editor,  and  not  to 
have  his  magazine  edited  by  the  printer  and  proof 
reader,  but  it  was  with  fear  and  trembling  that  he 
saw  the  number  go  out.  Its  reception  in  California 
must  have  confirmed  his  worst  misgivings,  but  the 
An  immediate  verdict  of  the  East  was  different.  The 
success.  return  mail  brought  a  letter  to  the  author 

from  the  publishers  of  the  "Atlantic  Monthly," 
requesting,  on  the  most  flattering  terms,  a  story  for 
that  magazine  similar  to  "  The  Luck  of  Roaring 
Camp."  Mr.  Harte  tells  us  that  when  he  placed 
this  letter  in  the  hands  of  his  publisher,  he  felt  his 
compensation  to  be  complete.  He  had  caught  the 
ear  of  the  public  at  last.  He  had  discovered  the 


BRET  HARTE.  221 


vein  that  he  could  profitably  spend  the  rest  of  his 
life  in  working. 

From  this  time,  during  the  brief  continuance  of 
his  California  life,  stories  and  poems  flowed  rapidly 
from  Bret   Harte's  pen.      "The  Outcasts  of  Poker 
Flat"  deepened  the   impression  made  by  his  first 
tale,   and  is  considered  by  many  to  be  his  finest 
story.       "Higgles,"    "Tennessee's    Partner,"    and 
other   stories   came   in  quick   succession,    and   the 
crowning   touch    was    given   to   his    popularity   by 
the  appearance  in   the   number   of   the  "Overland 
Monthly"  for  September,  1870,  of  "Plain  Language 
from   Truthful   James,"    the   well-known  The -Heathen 
verses  about  Ah  Sin,  the  Heathen  Chinee.   Chlnee-" 
This   poem    is   of   slight    literary  value,    compared 
with  some  of  Mr.  Harte's  other  work  in  verse,  but 
it  is  a  clever  skit  enough,  and  it  happened  to  appear 
just  at  the  time  to  meet  with  the  heartiest  welcome. 
Lines  and  phrases  of  it  became  household  words  all 
over  the  United  States,  and  in  spite  of  being  now 
familiar  even  to  triteness,  they  are  still  quoted  by 
newspapers  and  public  speakers  as  the  word  most 
pat  to   the  occasion   when  John  Chinaman   is  dis 
cussed.      The  satire  of  the  poem   exposed  better, 
perhaps,  than  sober  argument  could,    the  shallow- 
ness  of  the  grounds  on  which  the  cry,  "  The  Chinese 
must  go,"  was  raised.      One  questions  whether  some 
of  the  author's  unpopularity  in  California  may  not 
be  due  to  this  championship  of  oppressed  and  mal 
treated  John. 


222  AMERICAN   WRITERS   OF  TO-DAY. 


III. 

IN  the  year  following  the  publication  of  this 
poem  Bret  Harte  left  California,  and  has  never 
Leaves  Call-  returned.  He  had  won  a  public  for  him- 
fornia-  self,  but  not  on  the  Pacific  Coast;  there 

his  recognition  was  slight  from  the  first,  and  is  still 
anything  but  general  or  fervid.  Even  now  there 
are  Californians  who  assert  very  positively  that 
Bret  Harte  is  not  a  representative  Californian 
writer;  that  he  has  resided  so  long  abroad  as  to 
lose  his  connection  with  the  State,  and  that  his 
books  portray  a  condition  of  society  that  has  long 
ceased  to  exist.  Something  very  like  antipathy  is 
felt  towards  him  now  on  the  Pacific  coast,  instead 
of  the  cold  indifference  with  which  his  first  work 
was  received  there.  Before  he  left,  however,  he 
had  won  recognition  of  a  certain  sort  from  those 
who  were  qualified  to  appreciate  good  work,  as  is 
shown  by  the  fact  that  in  1870  he  was  appointed 
Professor  of  Recent  Literature  in  the  University 
of  California.  It  does  not  appear  that  he  ever  did 
any  work  in  connection  with  this  chair,  and  he 
could  not  have  held  it  more  than  a  single  year,  for 
in  1871  he  came  to  New  York. 

It  was  a  somewhat  Bohemian  existence  that  he 
led  in  the  metropolis,  with  no  certain  source  of 
income  and  no  regular  occupation.  There  was  at 
one  time  some  talk  of  founding  a  literary  periodi- 


BRET  HARTE.  22$ 


cal  in  Chicago  to  be  conducted  by  him,  but  the 
capital  apparently  was  not  forthcoming;  at  any 
rate,  nothing  came  of  it.  He  continued 

Bohemianism. 

to  contribute  stories  to  the  "Atlantic 
Monthly,"  and,  we  believe,  made  pot-boilers  for 
New  York  journals;  but  perhaps  his  best  known 
work  of  this  period  was  his  lecture  on  "The  Argo 
nauts  of  '49."  This  lecture  was  delivered  in  many 
places,  and  must  have  been  a  considerable  pecuniary 
success;  but  Mr.  Harte  failed  to  make  a  deep  im 
pression  on  the  lecture-hearing  public  and  gained 
no  permanent  place  in  the  lyceum  field.  This  was 
perhaps  as  well  for  him.  Had  he  been  gifted  with 
elocutionary  graces  that  win  the  favor  of  ordinary 
audiences  he  might  have  been  tempted  from  his 
legitimate  work. 

It  was  in  1878  that  he  left  his  native  country, 
practically  for  good,  for  though  he  may  have  made 
a  brief  visit  or  two  since  then,  he  has 

.  ITT  GoeS  abr0at*- 

resided  most  of  the  time  abroad.  He 
was  first  appointed  consul  to  Crefeld,  Germany, 
by  President  Hayes,  and  in  1880  was  transferred 
to  Glasgow.  In  this  latter  place  he  remained  until 
a  change  of  administration  in  1885  and  the  exigen 
cies  of  politics  compelled  his  retirement.  Since 
that  time  he  has  lived  for  the  most  part  in  London. 
He  is  a  favorite  in  English  society,  and  appears 
definitely  to  have  joined  that  small  but  select  body 
of  Americans  who  for  one  reason  or  another  have 
voluntarily  expatriated  themselves.  From  the  time 


224  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

of  his  going  abroad  to  the  present  moment  there  is 
little  to  tell  about  him,  except  the  titles  of  the 
books  he  has  published.  These  have  been  quite 
numerous,  and  all  in  the  same  vein  with  his  "  Luck 
of  Roaring  Camp"  and  other  early  tales.  They 
merely  repeat  and  amplify  the  picture  of  life  and 
manners  that  he  drew  for  us  in  that  first  volume. 
The  most  indulgent  critic  can  say  no  more  of  these 
later  volumes  than  that  they  are  not  unworthy  of 
what  he  published  before  1870. 


IV. 

BRET  HARTE  is  a  singular  example  of  the  force 
that  lies  in  narrowness.  Speaking  broadly,  he  is 
able  to  do  just  one  thing  well,  and  that 
is  to  delineate  the  life  with  which  he 
became  familiar  in  his  early  days.  He  can  do  that 
only  in  one  way,  through  the  medium  of  the  short 
story.  No,  that  is  not  just;  he  can  also  do  it 
through  the  dialect  ballad.  There  is  no  better 
work  of  the  kind  than  "Dow's  Flat"  and  other 
poems  of  a  similar  tone  that  he  wrote  late  in  the 
sixties.  But  in  recent  years  he  seems  to  have 
abandoned  verse  as  medium  of  expression,  and  con 
fined  himself  to  prose.  He  has  also,  with  a  single 
exception,  confined  himself  to  the  short  story  in 
his  fictions.  His  "Gabriel  Conroy "  (Hartford, 
1876),  the  one  case  in  which  he  attempted  a  full- 
grown  novel,  was  something  very  like  a  failure,  — 


BRET  HARTE.  22$ 


as  near  as  a  man  of  genius  can  come  to  failure 
when  he  attempts  something  beyond  his  powers. 
He  was  convinced  by  that  experiment  that  his  forte 
was  in  another  direction,  and  has  had  the  practical 
good  sense  to  heed  the  lesson.  This  is  not  a 
.common  thing  among  authors,  who  seem  to  have 
the  same  kind  of  fondness  for  the  works  condemned 
by  the  world  that  a  mother  has  for  a  deformed  or 
feeble-minded  child.  Milton  thought  his  "Para 
dise  Regained"  superior  to  his  "Paradise  Lost;" 
Bunyan  could  never  see  that  the  second  perversity 
part  of  "The  Pilgrim's  Progress"  was  ofauthors- 
unequal  to  the  first;  and  of  all  his  poems  Tennyson 
considered  "  Maud  "  the  best.  Tennyson  affords  an 
even  more  melancholy  instance  of  wilfulness  in  his 
persistent  writing  of  dramatic  works,  the  best  of 
which  is  not  above  second  or  third  class.  Mr. 
Harte  is  therefore  to  be  credited  with  unusual 
intelligence  in  the  perception  of  what  he  could  do 
best,  and  uncommon  self-control  in  restricting  him 
self  to  that  kind  of  work.  There  is  an  advantage 
not  to  be  lightly  esteemed* in  thus  restricting  one's 
sphere.  Breadth  is  very  well  when  it  does  not 
mean  shallowness,  but  with  narrowness  commonly 
goes  a  certain  depth  and  force.  None  of  our 
American  writers  has  been  narrower  in  range 
than  Hawthorne  and  Poe,  and  of  all  our  writers 
they  are  the  most  intense. 

Much  objection  has  been  raised  to  some  of  Bret 
Harte's  stories  on  the   ground   of   their  supposed 


226  AMERICAN   WRITERS   OF  TO-DAY. 

immoral  tendency.  It  must  be  admitted  by  his 
most  ardent  admirers  that  he  decidedly  prefers  as 
Alleged  immo-  heroes  and  heroines  of  his  tales  people 

of  shady  antecedents,  —  social  outcasts 
preferred,  but  anybody  who  is  in  the  habit  of  daily 
shattering  a  few  of  the  commandments  will  answer 
his  purpose.  It  is  a  remarkable  fact,  however,  that 
the  depravity  of  his  characters  is  little  more  than 
skin  deep;  the  worst  of  them  are  capable  on  occa 
sion  of  transcendent  deeds  of  heroism  and  self- 
sacrifice.  His  villains  are,  in  truth,  not  very 
villanous,  for  their  failings  have  a  strong  leaning 
to  virtue's  side.  One  suspects  that  their  wicked, 
ness  is  only  a  quality  imputed  to  them  by  the 
author  to  make  them  more  interesting.  It  must 
be  confessed  that  he  has  some  justification  for  this 
course.  Simple  goodness,  as  material  for  fiction, 
is  not  very  available;  it  is  so  often  simple  dulness. 
After  all,  from  the  strict  moralist's  point  of  view 
there  can  be  no  objection  to  the  villain  in  fiction 
per  se,  else  he  must  condemn  "  Paradise  Lost "  and 
"  Othello  "  as  immoral  ^vorks.  It  is  the  moral 
lesson  that  the  author  teaches  which  justifies  or 
condemns  his  choice  of  a  villain  as  a  hero.  Bret 
Harte  makes  a  spirited,  and,  one  must  think,  a 
conclusive  reply  to  the  charge  of  immorality  made 

against  him  on  the  ground  that  he  has 

His  reply. 

shown  too  much  mercy  to  the  wicked: 
"When  it  shall  be  proven  to  him  that  commu 
nities  are  degraded  and  brought  to  guilt  and  crime, 


BRET  HARTE.  22; 


suffering  or  destitution,  from  a  predominance  of  this 
quality;  when  he  shall  see  pardoned  ticket-of-leave 
men  elbowing  men  of  austere  lives  out  of  situation 
and  position,  and  the  repentant  Magdalen  supplant 
ing  the  blameless  virgin  in  society,  then  he  will 
lay  aside  his  pen  and  extend  his  hand  to  the  new 
Draconian  discipline  in  fiction.  But  until  then  he 
will,  without  claiming  to  be  a  religious  man  or  a 
moralist,  but  simply  as  an  artist,  reverently  and 
humbly  conform  to  the  rules  laid  down  by  a  Great 
Poet,  who  created  the  parable  of  the  'Prodigal  Son  ' 
and  the  'Good  Samaritan,'  whose  works  have  lasted 
eighteen  hundred  years,  and  will  remain  when  the 
present  writer  and  his  generation  are  forgotten." 

The  real  objection  to  Bret  Harte's  stories  does 
not  rest  on  moral,  but  on  artistic  grounds.  The 
trouble  with  his  villains  is  not  that  they  The  real  objec. 
are  too  bad,  but  that  they  are  not  bad  tion' 
enough,  —  that  is  to  say,  they  are  not  real.  Such 
villains  never  were  on  sea  or  land  outside  of  his 
stories,  unless  we  except  the  Bowery  stage  in  the 
melodrama  of  "ye  olden  time."  There  is  a  glare 
of  the  footlights,  an  atmosphere  of  the  theatre, 
about  too  many  of  these  tales,  —  not  the  best  of 
them,  for  the  best  work  of  Mr.  Harte  is  free  from 
this  defect,  and  ranks  among  the  choicest  in  recent 
American  literature.  Another  artistic  defect  in 
these  tales  is  that  their  sentiment  does  not  ring 
true;  it  often  flats  into  sentimentality.  More  than 
any  of  our  other  American  writers  of  fiction,  Mr. 


228  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

Harte  is  a  disciple  of  Dickens,  and  he  unfortunately 
often  falls  into  the  mawkishness  of  his  master. 
He  does  not  attempt  the  tender-pathetic  with  any 
"Little  Nells"  and  "Paul  Dombeys,"  but  he 
preaches  to  satiety  the  duty  of  charity  to  the  pub 
lican  and  the  sinner.  We  tire  of  it,  precisely  as 
we  tire  of  the  sentimental  gush  of  Dickens  about 
Christmas,  and  for  the  same  reason,  —  not  merely 
that  there  is  too  much  of  it,  but  that  it  does  not 
seem  to  be  quite  the  genuine  thing. 

In  his  verse  Bret  Harte  has  shown  a  somewhat 
wider  range.  He  does  to  perfection  the  humorous 
dialect  rhymes  in  which  his  favorite  Californians 
figure,  but  he  strikes  other  and  higher  keys.  Of 
these  his  "John  Burns,"  as  already  noted,  is  one 
fine  example,  and  others  are  "Dickens  in  Camp," 
"Twenty  Years,"  "Telemachus  and  his  Mentor," 
"Half  an  Hour  before  Supper,"  "To  the  Pliocene 
Skull,"  and  "Mrs.  Judge  Jenkins."  Each  of  these 
represents  a  different  manner,  and  each  is  of  high 
excellence  in  its  way.  Had  Mr.  Harte  been  able  to 
devote  himself  more  exclusively  to  verse,  one  is 
warranted  in  believing  that  his  name  would  have 
ranked  high  among  American  poets. 

It  is  a  fact  not  to  be  passed  by,  that  Bret  Harte 
is  one  of  the  few  American  authors  whose  popu- 
Popuiarity  larity  is  even  greater  abroad  than  at 
abroad.  home.  Our  English  kin  have  a  standard 

of  literary  excellence  much  like  our  own,   but  they 
have  also  an  ideal  peculiar  to  themselves  of  what  is 


BRET  HARTE,  22Q 


or  should  be  American,  and  they  are  very  exacting 
critics  in  this  regard.  They  will  not  admit  any 
thing  to  be  distinctively  American  unless  it  has 
some  flavor  of  wildness,  some  garb  of  uncouthness. 
It  is  the  same  tendency  of  mind  that  makes  the 
cockney  tourist  look  about  the  streets  of  New  York 
for  the  aborigines  in  paint  and  feathers  that  he  has 
taught  himself  to  expect,  and  to  be  vastly  surprised 
at  being  told  that  he  cannot  hunt  buffaloes  and 
other  big  game  in  the  immediate  vicinity  of  our 
great  cities.  It  is  the  good  fortune  of  Bret  Harte 
and  one  or  two  other  American  writers  to  have 
profited  by  this  peculiarity  of  the  reading  Briton. 
Nobody  will  envy  him  his  good  fortune.  One 
could  wish,  however,  that  the  Briton  might  learn 
to  admire,  not  with  less  of  heartiness,  but  with 
more  of  intelligent  discrimination,  the  literary  work 
of  the  American  Cousin. 


XIV. 

EDWARD    EVERETT   HALE. 

VERSATILITY     is    too    common    a    trait    in 
Americans   to    be    regarded   as    characteristic 
of   any   individual,    and  American    men  of    letters 
are  by  no  means  lacking  in  this  national  idiosyn 
crasy.      There  is  here   and   there   one  among  the 
knights  of  the  quill,   nevertheless,  who  realizes  so 
fully  the  traditional  accomplishments  of  the  admir 
able  Crichton   as  to  become  a  constant  wonder  to 
his  brother  workers  and   a  positive  marvel  to  the 
general.      Reaching   supreme  excellence 

Versatility. 

in  no  one  thing,  perhaps,  but  only  just 
missing  it  in  several  things,  and  doing  half  a  score 
as  only  the  picked  men  of  his  generation  can  do 
them, — if  there  were  an  "all  around"  champion 
ship  in  literature  as  there  is  in  athletics  it  would 
surely  fall  to  a  man  of  this  type.  Such  a  man  was 
Lowell;  such  a  man  was  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes; 
but  perhaps  of  all  the  American  writers  of  our  day 
the  one  who  excels  in  this  "all  around"  work  is 
Edward  Everett  Hale.  He  has  raised  versatility 
to  the  «th  power,  and  covered  with  ignominy  the 
hoary  old  proverb,  for  while  he  might  be  called  a 
Jack  at  all  trades,  he  is  master  of  all.  Nihil  tetigit 


EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE. 


—  the  saying  is  something  musty,  but  as  applied  to 
him  its  truth  redeems  it  from  triteness  and  gives 
it  fresh  currency.  He  has  done  much  to  give  the 
world  innocent  amusement  ;  he  has  done  even  more 
to  make  the  world  better. 


SOME  witty  but  not  very  reverent  American  has 
remarked  that  a  man  who  is  fortunate  enough  to  be 
born  in  Boston  does  not  need  to  be  born 
again.     This  felicity  was  Mr.   Kale's  in 
1822.     His  ancestry  was  no  less  fortunate  than  his 
birthplace.      The   founder   of  the   family   was   the 
Rev.   John  Hale,  a  divine  of   some  repute   in  the 
Salem  witchcraft  days.     The  reverend  John  was  a 
believer  in  witchcraft  at  the  first,  as  we  learn  from 
his  treatise,  "A  Modest  Inquiry  into  the  Nature  of 
Witchcraft,"  published  in  1697,   but  he  afterwards 
came  to  a  more  rational  view  of  the  matter.     Curi 
ously   enough,    he    was   the    only   minister   in    the 
family  for  several  generations, —  all  his  descendants 
becoming   either   physicians    or    journalists.       The 
literary  bent  in  the  family  has  always  been  strong, 
especially  so  in  the  immediate  family  of  Dr.  Hale. 
The    father  was    a   journalist;    an    elder    brother, 
Nathan,    followed    in  his  footsteps;   and  a   sister, 
Lucretia  P.,  is  a  well-known  writer  for  the  maga 
zines  and  author  of  books.     They  all  took  to  liter 
ature  as  naturally  as  if  ink  and  not  blood  was  the 


232  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 

circulating  fluid  in  their  veins.  Of  his  early  Boston 
days  Dr.  Hale  has  lately  given  us  a  series  of  very 
interesting  reminiscences,  called  "  Recollections  of 
a  New  England  Boyhood."  The  book  lacks  the  hu 
mor  of  Warner  and  Aldrich,  and  the  keen  observa 
tion  of  Howells,  but  it  supplements  their  boyhood 
autobiographies  very  pleasantly. 

Dr.    Hale's  education  was  gained  in  the  Boston 

Latin  School  and   at    Harvard    College,    where  he 

was  graduated   in    1839.      The  next  two 

Education. 

years  were  spent  in  teaching  and  the 
study  of  theology,  and  in  1842  he  was  licensed. 
For  several  years  he  did  not  have  a  settled  charge, 
but  preached  in  various  Unitarian  churches.  In 
1846  he  was  pastor  at  Worcester,  but  the  settlement 
was  a  brief  one,  for  the  following  year  he  received 
a  call  from  the  South  Congregational  church,  of 
Boston.  This  church,  one  notes  by  the  way,  has 
never  abandoned  its  orthodox  name,  though  it  gave 
up  its  orthodox  faith  early  in  the  great  Unitarian 
defection.  Here  for  nearly  half  a  century  he  has 
been  the  conscientious  and  hard-working  pastor  of 
a  great  city  parish,  and  his  pulpit  has  been  a 
recognized  force  in  the  religious  life  of  Boston 
during  all  those  years. 

Dr.  Hale  is  so  much  better  known  to  the  general 
public  as  a  man  of  letters  than  as  a  Christian  min 
ister,  one  may  be  pardoned  for  dwelling 
a  little  on  this  feature  of  his  work.      He 
is  not  a  theologian.      By  that   one  does  not  mean 


EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE.  233 

that  he  may  not  be  learned  in  the  history  of  dogma, 
and  well  versed  in  current  theological  speculation, 
or  even  an  original  thinker  on  the  great  problems 
of  religion,  but  merely  that  he  has  not  chosen  to 
give  the  results  of  his  study  and  thought  to  the 
world  in  formal  theological  treatises.  He  is  not  a 
great  pulpit  orator.  There  was  a  time  when  no 
visitor  to  the  metropolis  was  thought  to  have  seen 
the  great  show  properly  until  he  "went  to  hear 
Beecher. "  Dr.  Hale  has  never  been  a  part  of 
Boston's  show  in  that  way.  There  have  been  sensa 
tionalists  like  the  late  "Adirondack"  Murray,  and 
genuine  Christian  preachers  like  Phillips  Brooks, 
who  have  been  more  prominent  in  the  public  prints 
and  have  caught  the  popular  ear  more  successfully, 
but  this  sort  of  popularity  is  no  real  measure  of  a 
preacher's  influence.  Dr.  Hale,  without  being  a 
great  orator,  is  a  preacher  of  originality,  freshness, 
pungency,  practicality.  Moreover,  he  does  not 
preach  negations,  he  does  not  engage  in  dialectic 
duels  with  orthodoxy  or  agnosticism,  but  faithfully 
preaches  the  positive  truth  as  he  understands  it. 
He  does  not  preach  morals,  he  preaches  religion. 
And  therefore,  while  there  have  been  other  men, 
now  this  one  and  now  that,  who  have  temporarily 
seemed  to  have  more  vogue  with  the  people  of 
Boston  than  he,  there  has  been  no  more  powerful 
and  constant  religious  force  in  that  city  during 
the  past  half  century  than  the  pulpit  of  the  South 
Church. 


234  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 

Nor  has  he  been  a  preacher  and  writer  so  exclu 
sively  as  to  seclude  himself  from  his  people  and 
hold  himself  exempt  from  the  duties  of  a 
pastor.  He  has  faithfully  shepherded 
the  flock.  There  has  been  a  well-trodden  path 
between  his  study  door  and  the  homes  of  his  people, 
and  none  have  gone  to  him  in  vain  for  sympathy, 
for  consolation,  for  help.  He  has  not  frittered  away 
his  time  in  making  social,  gossipy  calls  on  his 
parishioners,  which  is  the  ideal  of  pastoral  visita 
tion  that  widely  obtains  among  both  ministers  and 
laymen,  but  he  has  not  spared  his  time  or  strength 
wherever  he  could  be  of  real  service  in  ministering 
to  the  sick  or  the  afflicted.  In  his  case  charity 
has  begun  at  home,  though  it  has  not  ended  there. 


II. 

DR.  HALE  first  won  public  recognition  as  a  man 
of  letters  through  the  "Atlantic  Monthly."  In 
one  of  the  early  numbers  of  that  magazine  his  "  My 
Double,  and  How  he  Undid  me  "  almost  immediately 
became  widely  known  and  highly  appreciated.  This 
success  was  repeated  and  intensified  by  other  con 
tributions  to  the  same  periodical,  that  placed  him 
at  once  in  the  front  rank  of  story-writers.  The 
most  famous  of  these  stories,  of  course,  is  "'The 
Man  Without  a  Country,"  and  it  strik- 

Philip  Nolan.  *'  . 

ingly  illustrates  the  author  s  chief  char 
acteristic  as  a  story-writer.     This  is  a  power,  such 


EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE.  235 

as  perhaps  no  writer  since  Defoe  has  so  fully 
possessed,  of  surrounding  his  tales  with  an  atmos 
phere  of  verisimilitude.  In  reading  many  authors' 
stories  we  say,  "That  might  have  happened,"  but 
after  reading  Kale's  stories  we  say,  "That  did 
happen  precisely  as  it  is  written."  This  story  of 
Philip  Nolan,  though  of  imagination  all  compact, 
has  been  believed  to  be  historical  by  thousands  of 
readers,  —  "  thousands  "  is  no  exaggeration  in  this 
case,  but  rather  an  understatement,  —  and  people  of 
vivid  imagination  and  vague  ideas  of  veracity  have 
even  been  known  to  assert  that  they  had  seen 
Philip  Nolan  and  knew  him  to  be  no  myth. 
Greater  tribute  than  this  to  a  writer's  power  could 
not  well  be  paid. 

"The  Skeleton  in  the  Closet,"  like  "My  Double," 
is  an  example  of  whimsical  humor  superadded  to 
this  gift  of  lifelike  narration.  There  are  charactem- 
some  American  humorists  whose  stories 
are  very  funny,  but  are  so  marked  by  exaggeration 
of  traits  that  we  feel  at  once,  though  we  may  not 
say,  "  Nobody  could  possibly  be  such  a  fool ; "  and 
there  are  other  stories  whose  incidents  are  so 
absurd  that  they  could  never  by  any  possibility 
have  happened.  But  when  Mr  Hale  tells  us  how 
a  hoop-skirt  destroyed  the  Southern  Confederacy, 
while  the  fundamental  idea  is  deliciously  absurd, 
every  link  in  the  chain  of  fact  he  forges  bears  the 
weight  of  any  test  of  credibility,  —  it  all  might  have 
happened  just  so,  and  while  we  read  we  have  no 


236  AMERICAN   WRITERS   OF  TO-DAY. 

doubt  that  it  did  so  happen,  though,  of  course,  we 
know  it  did  n't.  In  this  power  to  invent  and  tell  a 
story  bearing  all  the  marks  of  history,  Dr.  Hale  is 
without  a  peer  among  American  writers. 

He  is  not  so  successful,  however,  in  dealing  with 
a    theme    that    demands    larger    treatment.       Few 

Novels  less  writers,  indeed,  are  equally  successful 
successful.  in  dealmg  with  the  tale  and  the  novei. 

The  two  species  of  composition  demand  gifts  quite 
different  and  not  often  combined  in  one  person. 
In  a  short  story  incident  is  everything;  there  can 
be  no  elaborate  studies  of  character;  everything 
must  be  sketched  with  a  few  bold  strokes,  and 
there  must  be  no  halting  by  the  way.  In  the 
novel,  on  the  contrary,  the  effect  is  produced  by 
a  multitude  of  details;  digressions  from  the  main 
purpose,  if  not  too  frequent  or  too  long,  are  per 
missible;  and  the  study  of  character  is  far  more 
important  than  incident.  Books  like  "  Ups  and 
Downs "  and  "  Gone  to  Texas "  cannot  be  called 
much  more  than  short  stories  spun  out  so  as  to  fill 
a  volume.  This  is  merely  to  say,  however,  that 
even  so  versatile  a  man  of  letters  as  Dr.  Hale, 
while  he  fails  in  nothing  that  he  undertakes,  does 
not  reach  an  equal  height  of  excellence  in  every 
thing.  If  his  short  stories  were  not  of  a  quality  so 
superlative,  his  novels  might,  perhaps,  have  met 
with  a  higher  appreciation.  What  would  be  bril 
liant  success  in  another,  we  count  but  moderate 
achievement  in  him. 


EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE.  2$? 


III. 

As  a  writer  of  fiction,  Dr.  Hale  has  been  fairly 
prolific,  but  this  is  only  one  of  the  departments  of 
literature  cultivated  by  him.  If  all  his  Historian 
fictions,  short  and  long,  were  blotted  out, 
he  would  still  have  a  title  to  grateful  remembrance 
as  a  writer  of  history.  Besides  being  a  valued  con 
tributor  to  many  works  that  do  not  bear  his  name, 
—  like  Winsor's  "  History  of  Boston,"  — his  name 
appears  on  the  titlepage  of  some  twelve  historical 
writings.  A  number  of  these  are  "popular"  books, 
the  author  merely  taking  his  materials  from  stan 
dard  works  and  telling  the  facts  in  an  effective 
way.  "Stories  of  Discovery"  is  a  good  specimen 
of  this  kind  of  work.  In  other  books  Dr.  Hale  has 
made  original  and  important  contributions  to  his 
toric  knowledge.  Witness  his  paper  before  the 
American  Antiquarian  Society,  in  which  he  re 
counts  his  discovery  of  how  the  State  of  California 
received  its  name;  also  his  volume  of  "Original 
Documents  from  the  State  Paper  Office,"  in  which 
the  true  history  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh's  first 
American  colony  and  the  colony  at  Jamestown  was 
first  accurately  told. 

Had  Dr.  Hale  chosen  to  devote  his  energies  to 
the  writing  of  history,  he  might,  without  doubt, 
have  taken  rank  among  the  greatest  historians. 
The  same  faculty  of  life-like  narration,  of  making 


238  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

men  and  events  seem  intensely  real  to  the  reader, 
that  is  so  great  a  power  in  his  fictions,  would 
The  histories  nave  t>een  a  wondrous  gift  in  the  writer  of 
'"popular-"  sober  history.  This  faculty  is  manifest 
in  the  historical  writing  Dr.  Hale  has  actually 
given  us,  but  not  to  the  degree  one  might  wish. 
Indeed,  though  it  seems  ungracious  to  say  it,  these 
historical  books  are  less  satisfactory  to  one  who 
studies  them  critically  than  the  author's  other  writ 
ings.  They  are  unsatisfactory  mainly  because  they 
manifestly  fall  so  far  short  of  what  he  was  and  is 
capable  of  accomplishing.  They  are  superficial,  in 
many  cases,  in  their  treatment  of  the  material.  A 
"popular"  book  need  not  be  uncritical  and  un- 
scholarly;  beneath  the  text  should  be  solid  attain 
ment  and  careful  study,  though  processes  are  kept 
out  of  sight  and  only  results  are  given  to  the  reader, 
—  as  the  skeleton  gives  form  and  strength  to  the 
body,  though  invisible.  Dr.  Kale's  "popular" 
books,  moreover,  are  often  as  slipshod  in  style  as 
they  are  superficial  in  scholarship.  They  betray 
marks  of  haste  in  composition.  They  are  clever 
first  drafts  rather  than  carefully  finished  works. 
This  is  the  penalty  of  the  versatility  so  remarkable, 
and  the  industry  not  less  remarkable,  that  mark  the 
literary  career  of  Dr.  Hale.  Nevertheless,  when 
all  possible  deductions  are  made,  there  are  but  one 
or  two  living  historians  who  might  not  have  been 
proud  to  write  these  twelve  volumes  that  bear  his 
name. 


EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE.  239 


IV. 

THE  most  distinguished  member  of  a  family  of 
journalists,  it  was  to  be  expected  on  general  prin 
ciples  that  Dr.  Hale  would,  at  some  time 

Editor. 

of  his  life,  become  an  editor.  He  has 
not  merely  realized  this  reasonable  expectation,  but 
has  had  a  longer  and  a  more  diversified  editorial 
experience  than  falls  to  the  lot  of  most  men  who 
choose  this  as  their  sole  calling.  He  began  his 
apprenticeship  to  journalism  as  a  mere  boy,  learn 
ing  to  set  type  in  his  father's  printing-office.  It  is 
said  of  him,  and  one  can  easily  believe  it  to  be 
true,  that  at  one  time  or  another  he  has  served  in 
every  capacity  on  the  Boston  "Advertiser,"  from 
reporter  up  to  editor-in-chief.  The  magazines  and 
weekly  newspapers  that  he  has  edited  would  make 
a  respectable  catalogue  by  themselves,  and  include 
the  "Christian  Examiner,"  "Old  and  New,"  "Lend 
a  Hand,"  and  "The  New  England  Magazine." 
Several  periodicals  which  he  has  been  chiefly  in 
strumental  in  founding,  and  edited  for  a  time, 
either  maintain  a  prosperous  existence  still  or 
have  been  absorbed  into  other  ventures  still  more 
successful. 

Dr.  Hale  has  always  made  an  admirable  editor. 
He  is  industrious,  methodical,  enterprising;  he 
writes  well  himself,  and  he  is  a  good  judge  of 
others'  work;  he  knows  what  the  people  will  read, 


240  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

and  at  the  same  time  has  a  high  ideal  of  what  they 
ought  to  read;  and  he  has  the  faculty  of  gathering 
about  him  a  corps  of  contributors,  and  inspiring 
them  with  his  own  enthusiastic  purposes.  Had  he 
chosen  to  devote  himself  fully  to  daily  journalism, 
what  an  editor  he  would  have  been !  He  would 
have  preserved  all  the  best  traditions  of  the  Greeley 
and  Raymond  school,  adding  to  them  a  scholarship 
and  a  culture  that  the  men  of  that  school  too  often 
lacked,  and  bringing  to  his  work  a  tone  of  high- 
mindedness  and  Christian  principle,  without  the 
cant  of  religion,  that  daily  journalism  sorely 
needs. 


V. 

MANY  would  regard  Dr.  Hale's  work  as  a  philan 
thropist   as   the    crown    of   a   busy  and    diversified 
career,    though    it   has    been    incidental, 

Philanthropist.  .... 

almost  accidental,  in  his  work  as  a  man 
of  letters.  It  is  not  an  uncommon  thing  for  the 
publication  of  a  book  to  become  the  occasion  of  a 
doctrinal  propaganda.  Rousseau's  "  Le  Contrat 
Social "  is  a  classic  instance,  and  in  our  own  day 
Mr.  Henry  George's  "Progress  and  Poverty,"  and 
Mr.  Edward  Bellamy's  "Looking  Backward  "  have 
furnished  other  illustrations.  It  is  not  by  any  means 
so  common  for  a  book  to  give  rise  to  a  practical 
philanthropic  movement  based  on  the  highest  Chris 
tian  morality.  Dr.  Hale's  "Ten  Times  One  is 


EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE.  241 

Ten  "  (Boston,  1870),  had  this  unusual  good  fortune, 
thus  achieving  a  success  that  its  author  undoubtedly 
places  far  above  any  commercial  success  attained 
by  his  stories.  The  hero  of  this  tale,  Harry  Wads- 
worth,  had  for  his  motto  :  "  Look  up  and  not  down  ; 
look  forward  and  not  back ;  look  out  and  not  in ; 
and  lend  a  hand."  These  clubs  of  ten,  whose  for 
mation  and  method  of  work  were  suggested  by  this 
book,  have  very  generally  been  called  "  Harry 
Wadsworth  clubs,"  but,  under  whatever  name,  they 
have  extended  pretty  much  around  the  globe,  hav 
ing  representatives  not  merely  on  this  continent 
and  in  Europe,  where  we  might  reasonably  expect 
them,  but  in  Asia  and  Africa  and  the  islands  of  the 
Pacific.  This  was  the  first  successful  attempt  to 
enlist  young  people  in  Christian  work,  and  was 
the  parent  idea  to  which  may  be  traced  the  later 
success  of  other  organizations,  like  the  King's 
Daughters,  and  the  Young  People's  Society  of 
Christian  Endeavor.  The  idea  of  the  "  Ten  "  as 
the  unit  of  organization  in  the  King's  Daughters 
was  borrowed  directly  from  Dr.  Hale;  while  its 
distinctive  motto  was  probably  suggested  by  the 
publication  of  another  of  his  stories,  "In  His 
Name"  (Boston,  1874),  a  tale  of  the  Waldenses. 
There  seems  to  be  but  one  reason  why  these  clubs 
did  not  have  the  same  rapid  growth  in  membership 
that  the  later  organizations  have  had,  namely,  a 
prejudice  against  them  in  "  orthodox  "  circles,  owing 
to  the  fact  that  the  clubs  originated  among  Unita- 

16 


242  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

rians,  — a  very  unworthy  feeling,  no  doubt,  but  one 
quite  inevitable  in  the  present  division  of  Pro 
testant  Christianity  into  a  multitude  of  warring 
sects.  Even  with  this  drawback,  in  a  little  more 
than  five  years  after  the  beginning  of  the  movement 
these  clubs  counted  a  membership  of  fifty  thousand. 

Dr.  Hale  was  a  pioneer  also  in  another  hopeful 
cause,  the  enlistment  of  young  children  in  religious 
enterprises.  The  "  Look-up  Legion  "  that  he  was 
instrumental  in  organizing  among  the  children  of 
the  Sunday-schools,  has  had  its  counterpart  in 
"  Band  of  Hope "  temperance  societies,  in  the 
"Junior  Societies"  of  Christian  Endeavor,  and  in 
the  still  more  recent  "Boys'  Brigade."  All  of 
these  organizations,  though  each  proceeds  on  lines 
of  its  own,  rest  on  the  principle,  to  which  Dr. 
Hale  was  among  the  first  to  give  outward  expres 
sion,  that  formation  is  better  than  reformation,  — 
that  we  may  far  easier  mould  character  aright 
during  its  plastic  stage  than  remake  it  when  it  has 
hardened  into  an  immoral  and  un-Christian  shape. 

One  must  not  fail  to  record  Dr.  Hale's  enthusi 
astic  and  intelligent  championship  of  popular  edu 
cation.  He  was  one  of  the  earliest  and 

Chautauqua.  .     .  ,    f    .         , 

has  been  one  of  the  most  constant  friends 
of  the  Chautauquan  idea.  From  his  pen  have  come 
some  of  the  most  enticing  text -books  of  the  Chau 
tauqua  courses, — though  one  must,  in  good  con 
science,  add  that  they  have  not  always  been  equal, 
in  accuracy  of  detail,  to  the  spirit  in  which  they 


EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE.  243 

were  conceived.  He  has  been  a  favorite  lecturer 
at  the  summer  school  that  meets  yearly  in  the 
Chautauqua  assembly.  Not  only  in  connection 
with  this  movement,  but  throughout  all  his  career, 
by  voice  and  pen  he  has  stood  for  the  American 
idea  of  popular  sovereignty,  but  the  sovereignty 
of  a  people  trained  in  the  fear  of  God  and  in  the 
knowledge  of  God's  world. 

It  is  probable,  nay,  morally  certain,  that  this 
account  of  Dr.  Hale's  protean  activity  fails  to  do 
him  more  than  approximate  justice.  He  has  lived 
so  full  a  life,  that  only  an  official  biographer,  with 
access  to  his  papers  and  documents,  can  do  more 
than  vaguely  outline  the  scope  of  his  activities. 
The  injunction  of  Scripture,  "  Whatsoever  thy  hand 
findeth  to  do,  do  it  with  thy  might,"  he  has  fulfilled 
more  completely  than  most  men,  and  his  hands 
have  found  so  many  things  to  do!  Such  a  life 
reminds  one  of  the  Indian  proverb,  quoted  by  Sir 
William  Jones,  "Words  are  the  daughters  of  earth, 
and  deeds  are  the  sons  of  heaven." 


VI. 

IT  may  seem  to  some  readers  somewhat  incon 
gruous  to  assign  so  much  space,  in  an  essay  osten 
sibly  devoted  to  literary  criticism,  to  the 

.  f  t 

non-literary  undertakings  of  a  man  like 

Dr.  Hale.     Yet  the  procedure  has  its  justification. 
To  know  any  man's  books  it  is  a  great  help,  if  not 


244  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 

an  indispensable  requisite,  to  know  the  man.  It 
is  also  necessary,  to  judge  the  books  properly,  to 
know  what  has  been  accomplished  through  them. 
There  are  American  authors  who  have  written  books 
more  perfect  in  form  than  those  of  Dr.  Hale;  but 
his  books,  as  the  history  of  many  of  them  has 
proved,  have  a  power  such  as  few  American  authors 
have  shown.  A  marble  statue  may  be  more  per 
fect,  in  the  artist's  judgment,  than  a  living  man; 
but  the  living  man,  capable  of  conceiving  and 
achieving  great  things,  is  worth  more  to  the  world 
than  the  lifeless  marble  with  all  its  perfections. 
Dr.  Kale's  books  may  not  live  in  the  literature  of 
the  future,  —  that  is,  some  of  them  may  not,  —  but 
they  will  survive  through  all  generations  in  the 
characters  of  men  and  women  made  nobler  and 
stronger  through  their  influence. 

A  still  further  apology  may  be  made  for  any 
shortcomings  in  this  account  of  the  purely  literary 
work  of  Dr.  Hale.  It  is  so  appallingly  voluminous 
Voluminous-  ^n  extent.  He  has  written  and  published 
fifty  volumes;  a  complete  bibliography 
would  make  the  number  rather  over  than  under  the 
half-hundred  mark.  It  would  be  manifestly  absurd, 
with  such  a  row  of  books  staring  him  in  the  face, 
for  a  critic  to  attempt  anything  like  a  detailed 
examination  of  them  in  less  space  than  an  entire 
volume.  The  most  that  can  be  done  is  to  select 
representatives  of  each  class,  and  thus  give  a  fairly 
comprehensive  account  of  the  work  as  a  whole, 


EDWARD  EVEKETT  HALE.  24$ 

without  attempting  exhaustive  completeness.  This 
is  what  has  been  attempted  in  this  paper,  and 
only  a  few  things  remain  to  be  said  by  way  of 
summing  up. 

Dr.  Hale,  in  nearly  all  that  he  has  written,  has 
had  a  higher  purpose  than  merely  to  amuse;  in 
spirit  and  aim  he  has  always  been  the  Aiwaysthe 
preacher,  whatever  he  may  have  been  preacher' 
doing.  To  say  this  will  be  to  pronounce  his  con 
demnation,  in  the  judgment  of  some  narrow  theo 
rists,  who  prate  of  "art  for  art's  sake,"  as  if  all 
truth  had  been  finally  committed  to  their  hands  for 
exposition  and  defence.  But  if  Dr.  Hale  has  always 
been  preacher,  as  man  of  letters  he  has  always  been 
artist.  His  professional  fondness  for  homiletics 
has  never  confused  in  his  mind  the  distinction 
between  sermon  and  story.  Hence,  while  his  fic 
tion  always  preaches,  it  is  never  "preachy."  He 
has  learned  the  secret  of  teaching  without  didac 
ticism.  He  never  wrote  a  novel  without  purpose, 
and  he  never  wrote  a  novel  with  a  pur-  butnot 
pose.  This  is  paradox:  it  is  also  truth.  "Preachy-" 
He  so  tells  a  story  that  it  makes  its  own  impression, 
and  a  word  of  formal  preaching  would  mar  the  effect. 
The  fictitious  history  of  "The  Man  Without  a 
Country"  is  an  excellent  example  of  his  achieve 
ment  in  this  line.  It  was  published  during  the 
throes  of  our  civil  war,  at  a  time  when  its  author 
wished  to  make  the  strongest  plea  in  his  power  for 
loyalty  to  our  country  and  its  flag.  It  made  a 


246  AMERICAN   WRITERS   OF  TO-DAY. 

profound  impression,  and  it  is  hardly  an  exaggera 
tion  to  say  that  the  story  of  Philip  Nolan  was 
worth  as  much  to  the  Union  cause,  in  its  effect  on 
the  morale  of  the  people  at  a  critical  time,  as  a 
victory  won  by  our  armies.  Only  those  who  put 
bullet  above  brain,  and  mortars  before  morals,  will 
belittle  the  effect  of  such  a  story.  Great  as  it  is, 
judged  purely  by  literary  standards  as  a  piece  of 
composition,  it  is  greater  as  a  sermon. 

One  thing  is  remarkable  in  all  of  Dr.  Hale's 
writing,  and  that  is  his  cheerful  optimism.  One 
can  recall  nothing  in  his  books  at  variance  with 
this  dominant  "note."  He  does  not,  indeed,  go  to 
the  extreme  of  maintaining  that  this  is  the  best  of 
all  possible  worlds,  and  that  whatever  is  is  right; 
but  his  heart  ever  sings  with  Pippa, — 

"  God  's  in  his  heaven  — 
All  's  right  with  the  world ! " 

He  believes,  in  every  drop  of  his  blood,  in  the 
fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man.  It  is 
a  short  creed,  but  there  is  none  better;  and  on  the 
practical  side  of  it,  we  are  assured  on  excellent 
authority,  hang  all  the  law  and  the  prophets. 
Thus  believing,  Dr.  Hale  holds  that  the 
amelioration  of  the  race  is  hopeful,  and 
the  strength  of  this  hope  is  in  the  possibility 
of  leading  men  to  recognize  their  divine  sonship. 
It  is  a  levelling  up,  therefore,  not  a  levelling  down, 
toward  which  he  directs  his  energies  and  his  hopes. 


EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE.  247 

"You  are  my  brother,"  says  Tolstoi,  to  the  poor 
and  degraded,  "and  therefore  I  will  live  with  you 
and  be  dirty."  "You  are  my  brother,"  says  Dr. 
Hale,  "therefore  live  with  me  and  be  clean."  This 
brief  apologue  illustrates  two  very  different  modes 
of  approaching  current  problems  relating  to  man 
kind  and  its  social  advancement.  Much  —  not  all, 
but  much  —  of  that  which  passes  under  the  name  of 
socialism  belongs  to  the  first  category.  Who  of  us 
will  hesitate  to  proclaim  his  belief  that  Dr.  Hale 
has  found  the  more  excellent  way? 

One  takes  leave  of  the  Boston  preacher,  author, 
and  philanthropist  with  regret.  His  is  a  nature 
cast  in  a  large  mould,  a  mind  broad  and  hospitable 
to  all  truth,  a  soul  instinct  with  faith,  hope,  and 
charity.  Such  a  man,  write  he  never  so  much,  will 
necessarily  be  greater  than  any  or  all  of  his  works. 
He  cannot  be  measured  by  the  standards  of  mathe 
matics,  for  in  him  the  whole  is  indefinitely  greater 
than  the  sum  of  all  its  parts. 


XV. 

EDWARD   EGGLESTON. 

A  VERY  interesting  essay  might  be  written  on  the 
advantages  of  ill-health  to  men  of  letters. 
Whether  by  accident  or  in  obedience  to  some  law  of 
human  nature,  it  has  happened  in  the  history  of  liter 
ature  that  some  of  the  greatest  achievements  have  been 
due  to  men  of  infirm  body.  Ancient  literature  pro 
duced  no  more  industrious  and  eminent  man  of  letters 
than  Cicero,  yet  nearly  all  his  life  he  struggled  with 
The  triumph  ill-health.  Calvin  wrote  a  whole  library  of 
books,  and  he,  too,  lived  in  a  chronic  state 
of  invalidism.  Pascal,  though  the  volume  of  his  work 
is  comparatively  small,  made  some  of  the  choicest 
contributions  to  French  literature,  and  his  life  was  one 
long  disease.  In  American  literature,  we  may  cap 
these  instances  with  the  names  of  Francis  Parkman 
and  Edward  Eggleston.  What  Mr.  Parkman  achieved, 
in  spite  of  afflictions  and  discouragements  that  would 
have  crippled  a  man  of  ordinary  industry  and  firmness 
of  will,  is  a  tale  that  has  been  often  told  without  losing 
any  of  its  romance.  The  story  of  Dr.  Eggleston's  life 
is  hardly  less  striking ;  and  though  no  single  achieve 
ment  of  his  can  be  said  to  surpass,  or  perhaps  to 


EDWARD  EGGLESTON.  249 

equal  Mr.  Parkman's  work,  in  the  sum  it  is  proof  of 
unsurpassed  industry,  dogged  perseverance,  and  un 
flagging  purpose. 

I. 

EDWARD  EGGLESTON  was  born  at  Vevay,  Ind., 
December  10,  1837.  His  father  was  a  lawyer  by 
profession  and  a  Virginian  by  birth.  He  died,  how 
ever,  when  his  son  was  a  lad  of  nine.  From  the  day 
of  his  birth  young  Eggleston  enjoyed  poor  health,  as 
they  say  in  New  England.  He  was  a  delicate  boy, 
whose  very  continuance  in  life  seemed  at 

His  youth. 

times  most  uncertain ;  and  because  of  this 
delicacy  he  was  not  only  unable  to  join  in  the  hearty 
out-door  sports  of  other  boys,  but  was  prohibited 
from  pursuing  any  systematic  course  of  education. 
He  spent  hardly  more  months  in  school  than  Abraham 
Lincoln,  and,  like  the  more  famous  Hoosier  boy,  was 
almost  entirely  self-educated.  In  1856  his  health  was 
so  delicate  that  his  life  was  despaired  of,  and  he  spent 
four  months  in  Minnesota  in  an  attempt  to  restore  it. 
Returning  somewhat  stronger,  he  became  a  Methodist 
circuit  rider. 

The  circuit  rider  of  those  days  was  an  institution 
peculiar  to  the  time  and  the  country.  There  have 
been  circuit  riders  elsewhere,  but  none  of 

A  circuit  nder. 

the  precise   type  that  the  far  West  pro 
duced  in  its  pioneer  days.     These  men  of  faith,  car 
rying  their  library  as  well  as  their  wardrobe  in  their 
saddle-bags,  preached  the  gospel  through  the  entire 


25O  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

frontier  region  of  America.  Their  houses  of  worship 
were  God's  own  temples,  the  woods.  They  lived  in 
the  plainest  manner,  sharing  all  the  hardships  of  the 
pioneer  people,  making  hazardous  journeys,  in  fre 
quent  danger  from  floods,  from  wild  beasts,  and  from 
men  even  more  savage.  The  circuit  preacher  had  a 
parish  that,  as  one  of  them  said,  "  took  in  one  half  of 
creation,  for  it  had  no  boundary  on  the  West."  In 
many  cases  he  was  hardly  more  literate  than  his  hear 
ers,  and  these  were  fortunate,  indeed,  if  they  could 
read  their  Bibles  and  write  their  names;  yet  these 
uncouth  preachers  led  multitudes  of  men  to  Christ, 
built  churches,  and  laid  denominational  foundations 
deep  and  broad  throughout  all  the  great  West.  The 
present  generation  has  entered  into  their  labors  with 
far  too  little  comprehension  of  the  tribulation  and 
self-denials  that  those  labors  entailed. 

Mr.  Eggleston  was,  undoubtedly,  a  better  educated 
man  than  many  of  the  circuit  preachers,  as  well  as  a 
man  of  greater  native  force  of  mind.  He  would  never 
have  been  an  ordinary  or  even  an  uncultivated  man, 
His  self-  wherever  his  lot  might  have  been  cast. 
culture.  With  a  hunger  for  knowledge,  he  was  cer 

tain  to  gratify  this  craving  in  some  manner  under  any 
circumstances.  Those  who  have  read  his  writings 
know  how  much  of  an  education  in  human  nature  this 
experience  was  to  him,  and  what  a  great  part  it  had 
in  making  the  broad-minded,  tolerant  man  that  he 
became.  The  severity  of  these  labors,  in  spite  of  the 
healthfulness  of  the  out-of-door  life,  compelled  him 


EDWARD  EGGLESTON,  251 

from  time  to  time  to  desist  and  finally  to  abandon  his 
calling  altogether. 

Just  when  Mr.  Eggleston  began  to  have  leanings 
toward  literary  work  it  is  not  possible,  with  the  light 
we  now  have,  to  say.  What  is  certain  is,  that  the 
outward  beginnings  of  his  literary  career  Journalist 
may  be  found  in  his  removal  in  1866  to 
Evanston,  111.,  and  his  acceptance  of  a  position  on  the 
editorial  staff  of  the  "  Little  Corporal,"  one  of  the  first 
and  most  popular  of  American  periodicals  for  the 
young.  During  his  connection  with  it  the  quality  of 
this  paper  was  very  much  bettered,  and  up  to  the 
time  of  its  sale  to  the  newly  established  "  St.  Nicholas  " 
it  was,  on  the  whole,  the  best  periodical  of  its  class. 
This  journalistic  experience  in  the  West  was  extended 
by  several  years'  service  on  the  staff  of  the  "  Sunday- 
school  Teacher  "  in  Chicago,  during  which  time  the 
circulation  leaped  from  five  thousand  to  thirty-five 
thousand  copies,  —  an  emphatic  testimony  to  the 
faithfulness  and  ability  of  his  work. 

In  1870  Dr.  Eggleston  came  to  New  York.  He 
was  at  first  the  literary  editor  of  the  "  Independent," 
and  for  a  time  succeeded  Theodore  Tilton  as  editor  of 
that  newspaper.  In  1871  he  was  editor  of  "  Hearth 
and  Home,"  and  with  his  resignation  of  this  comesto 

.         .  New  York. 

post  two  years  later   his   editorial    labors 
ceased.     He  showed  in  all  the  positions  that  he  filled 
that  he  had  the  true  journalistic    gift,   and,  had  his 
health  permitted  the  severe  and  unintermitting  appli 
cation  that  the  calling  requires,    he  would,   without 


252  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 

question,    have   been   one   of  the    most   brilliant   of 
American  journalists. 

From  1874  to  1879  Dr.  Eggleston  was  pastor  of 

the  Church  of  Christian  Endeavor,  Brooklyn.     This 

church  was  as  independent  in  its  ecclesiastical  relations 

as  Dr.  Eggleston  himself  has  always  been 

Pastor. 

in  his  thinking  and  ways  of  work.  Never, 
perhaps,  a  popular  preacher  in  the  accepted  sense  of 
that  term,  he  was  one  to  whom  multitudes  of  men  and 
women  belonging  to  the  unchurched  classes  naturally 
gravitated.  He  had  a  message  for  many  uneasy  and 
hungry  souls  that  find  it  difficult  to  be  satisfied  with 
the  rigid  creeds  and  the  orthodox  sermonizing  of  the 
ordinary  evangelical  churches.  That  this  class  is  at 
present  a  large  one  in  our  great  cities  no  one  who  is 
familiar  with  the  facts  will  question,  and  Dr.  Eggleston, 
during  these  five  years,  was  received  by  many  people 
of  this  type  as  a  prophet  of  God.  They  were  in 
structed,  and,  best  of  all,  they  were  stimulated  to  holy 
living  and  good  works  by  his  preaching.  His  church 
was  known  as  eminently  a  working  church,  a  practical 
church.  Some  of  his  methods  for  reaching  and  hold 
ing  young  men  scandalized  the  staid  orthodox  people 
of  Brooklyn ;  but  if  they  did  not  accomplish  all  the 
good  that  he  expected,  it  does  not  appear  that  they 
ever  did  any  serious  harm. 

Since  his  retirement  from  this  pastorate,  Dr.  Eggles 
ton  has  devoted  himself  entirely  to  literary  work. 
His  residence  for  half  the  year  is  still  in  Brooklyn, 
but  during  the  other  half-year  he  lives  at  Owls'  Nest, 


EDWARD  EGGLESTON.  2$$ 

a  picturesque  cottage,  beautifully  situated  on  the 
shore  of  Lake  George.  Here  he  keeps  his  library,  —  a 
collection  of  some  four  thousand  volumes,  the  greater 
part  relating  to  colonial  history,  —  and  here  he  does 
his  writing. 

II. 

DR.  EGGLESTON'S  first  venture  in  pure  literature, 
as  distinguished  from  ephemeral  journalistic  writing, 
was  "  The  Hoosier  Schoolmaster."  This  story  was 
published  as  a  serial  in  "  Hearth  and  Home  "  during 
the  opening  year  of  his  editorship  of  that  periodi 
cal,  and  was  written  in  the  midst  of  ab- 

First  story. 

sorbing  labors  of  all  sorts,  such  as  fall  to 
the  lot  of  every  editor.  The  publication  as  a  serial 
was  begun  before  the  story  was  more  than  well  planned, 
and  throughout  its  continuance  the  author  was  com 
pelled  to  labor  almost  literally  with  the  "  devil  "  at  his 
elbow.  The  novel  made  a  sensation  from  the  outset ; 
indeed,  how  could  it  be  otherwise?  Not  only  had  it 
great  merits  as  a  story,  but  it  was  so  evidently  written 
out  of  the  author's  heart  and  experience  that  no  reader 
could  fail  to  be  impressed  by  its  truth  to  life.  It  was 
a  tale  of  great  freshness,  too.  The  pioneer  preacher 
had  become  a  pioneer  in  fiction.  At  that  time  (1871) 
few  American  writers  had  begun  to  suspect  what  a 
wealth  of  material  existed  for  the  novelist  in  our  own 
country,  especially  in  the  West  and  South.  The  sea 
board  States  had  been  exploited  to  some  extent, 


254  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF    TO-DAY. 

though  the  material  was  by  no  means  exhausted,  and 
the  fame  of  Bret  Harte  was  already  abroad  in  the 
land ;  but  in  dealing  with  pioneer  life  in  the  newer 
West  Dr.  Eggleston  was  breaking  soil  as  virgin  as 
that  of  its  own  prairies. 

There  followed  in  due  time  several  other  books  of 
the  same  general  character,  even  better  in  literary 
finish  and  of  similar  flavor:  "The  Circuit  Rider" 
(1874),  "Roxy"  (1878),  "The  Hoosier  Schoolboy" 
(1883),  and  "The  Graysons  "  (1887).  "Roxy"  and 
"  The  Graysons "  were  first  published  as  serials  in 
"  The  Century,"  and  made  the  author  known 

Other  books.  J  ' 

to  a  wider  circle  of  readers  than  he  had 
before  possessed,  and  also  gave  to  his  writings  the 
stamp  of  critical  approval  so  highly  valued  by  some. 
Before  this  time  certain  critics  and  readers  had  affected 
to  look  on  Eggleston  as  an  undisciplined  product  of 
the  Wild  West,  hardly  to  be  ranked  alongside  of  the 
more  cultured  writers  of  the  East.  When  he  was 
taken  up  by  one  of  the  foremost  periodicals  of  the 
world,  it  was  necessary  to  revise  this  provincial  judg 
ment  and  award  him  his  due  place  among  our  chief 
writers  of  fiction. 

Of  late  years  Dr.  Eggleston  has  written  less  fiction, 
and  in  what  he  has  written  he  has  confined  himself  less 
closely  to  Hoosierdom.  He  has  lived  long  enough 
now  in  the  East  to  know  it  as  well  as  he  knows  the 

West,  better  perhaps  than  he  knows  the 

Later  writings.     ^^    Q{,  ^^  and    he    probably    judged 

wisely  in  giving  more  of  scope  and  variety  to  his  work. 


EDWARD  EGGLESTON.  255 

"The  Faith  Doctor,"  with  its  study  of  Christian 
Science  and  faith  cure,  was  remarkable  not  only  for 
its  up-to-date,^  de  sttcle  treatment  of  current  specu 
lation  and  social  phenomena,  but  for  its  very  accu 
rate  local  color.  It  was  quite  distinctly  the  novel  of 
the  season  when  published.  Rumor  has  it  that  Dr. 
Eggleston  will  write  no  more  fiction,  but  will  devote 
his  remaining  days  to  his  labors  as  a  historian. 

It  would  be  easy  to  analyze  Dr.  Eggleston's  fictions, 
and  to  show  in  detail  their  literary  excellence,  but  the 
task  is  in  his  case  as  superfluous  as  it  might  be  tedious, 
for  his  chief  excellence  is  not  literary.  He  The  man 

greater  than 

is,  to  be  sure,  a  conscientious  and  artistic  theartist- 
writer,  and  in  the  technicalities  of  his  craft  he  has 
nothing  to  fear  from  a  comparison  with  others.  What 
is  meant  in  saying  that  his  chief  excellence  is  not  liter 
ary  is,  that  in  him  the  artist  is  subordinate  to  the  man. 
It  does  not  require  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  him 
to  convince  one  that  his  is  a  personality  that 

"  Shows  a  heart  within  blood- tinctured,  of  a  veined  humanity." 

His  closest  friends  describe  him  as  a  born  philanthro 
pist,  whose  house,  wherever  he  may  dwell,  is  thronged 
with  those  who  stand  in  need  of  material  or  spiritual 
comfort,  and  who  never  depart  unclothed  and  unfed. 
These  ministrations  are  never  professional  and  per 
functory,  but  are  rendered  in  the  spirit  of  Christian 
brotherhood.  It  is  the  throb  of  this  warm  and  true 
heart,  with  its  love  for  all  humankind,  its  sympathy 
with  human  sorrows,  its  pity  for  human  weakness, 


256  AMERICAN  WAITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 

its  tolerance  of  human  errors,  that  one  feels  in  Dr. 
Eggleston's  books,  and  in  this  his  peculiar  charm  and 
power  must  be  sought. 


III. 


DR.  EGGLESTON'S  determination  to  give  us  no 
more  novels,  in  spite  of  the  high  rank  he  has  won 
as  a  writer  of  fiction,  is  understood  to  be  due  to  his 
absorption  in  historical  study.  This  is  in  no  sense  a 
sudden  change  of  purpose,  a  transference  of  interest 
from  one  branch  of  the  literary  profession 

Historian. 

to  another,  such  as  sometimes  results  from 
whim  or  ennui.  One  could  comprehend  how  a  popu 
lar  novelist  might  become  unspeakably  weary  of  pro 
ducing  his  novel  a  year,  and  how  in  sheer  desperation 
and  poverty  of  soul  he  might  turn  to  other  work  for 
relief.  So  far  as  appears,  Dr.  Eggleston  does  not 
cease  to  write  fiction  because  he  is  tired  of  it,  and 
certainly  he  does  not  cease  because  the  public  is 
tired  of  him.  He  has  a  conviction,  however,  that  he 
can  do  work  of  higher  quality,  of  more  lasting  value, 
as  a  writer  of  history.  Probably  this  conviction  is 
well  founded,  and  at  any  rate  he  is  quite  right  to 
refuse  to  do  what  his  conscience  tells  him  is  not  the  best 
of  which  he  is  capable,  whether  for  the  present  the 
world  agrees  with  him  or  no.  It  is  more  than  likely 
that  the  world  will  disagree  with  him,  for  it  loves  to 
be  amused  and  hates  to  be  instructed. 


EDWARD  EGGLESTON. 


The  study  of  history,  and  the  writing  of  it  too,  is, 
as  has  been  intimated,  not  a  recent  pursuit  of  Dr. 
Eggleston's.  It  has  more  or  less  employed  him 
throughout  his  busy  career,  and  in  these  latter  years 
may  fairly  be  called  the  passion  of  his  life.  Long 
years  ago  he  began  to  collect  books  relating  to  the 
colonial  period  of  American  history.  This  labor  of 
love  he  has  continued  until  he  is  said  to  have  a 
collection  of  volumes,  old  and  new,  of  every  con 
ceivable  date,  style,  and  condition,  such  as  it  would 
be  hard  to  duplicate  outside  of  our  great  Diligence  in 
public  libraries,  if  it  could  be  duplicated  research- 
even  there.  The  libraries  and  book-stalls  of  Europe, 
as  well  as  those  of  America,  have  been  ransacked  for 
the  making  of  this  collection.  Besides,  he  has  ac 
cumulated  a  mass  of  old  prints,  casts,  manuscripts, 
autographs,  curios,  and  relics  of  all  sorts,  that  are 
something  more  than  mere  rarities  to  be  gazed  at, 
and  are  invaluable  for  illustrating  his  text.  This 
reproducing  to  the  eye  the  features  of  colonial  life 
is  something  that  has  never  before  been  attempted 
in  a  serious  and  systematic  way,  and  its  value  can 
not  be  overestimated.  No  one  who  is  familiar  with 
Knight's  "Pictorial  History  of  England,"  or  with  the 
illustrated  edition  of  Green,  will  be  disposed  to  un 
dervalue  the  worth  of  a  like  service  performed  by  a 
competent  scholar,  with  rare  industry  and  accuracy, 
for  our  own  history. 

Dr.    Eggleston's   first   contributions   to   American 
history  took  the  form  of  biographies  of  celebrated 


258  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  7V-DAY 

Indians.  First  came  "  Tecumseh  "  (1878),  followed 
speedily  by  "  Pocahontas  and  Powhattan "  (1879), 
"  Brant  and  Red  Jacket  "  (same  year),  "  Montezuma 
and  the  Conquest  of  Mexico"  (1880).  With  the 
exception  of  the  last-named  book,  these 

Biographies.  _  .  «n      i  i  ^11 

biographies  still  nave  the  field  pretty 
much  to  themselves,  and  are  likely  to  hold  it  for 
some  time  to  come.  Though  these  worthies  figure 
of  necessity  in  every  history  of  America,  most  his 
torians  content  themselves  with  giving  them  a  para 
graph,  or  at  most  a  page,  each.  Dr.  Eggleston 
found  abundant  materials  for  full-length  biographies ; 
and  the  freshness  of  the  subjects  and  the  complete 
ness  of  the  research  on  which  the  books  were 
founded,  recommended  them  to  popular  favor  hardly 
less  than  the  animated  style  in  which  they  were' 
written. 

In  1888  was  published  a  "History  of  the  United 
States,"  in  two  single-volume  editions,  one  for  school 
use,  the  other  for  general  reading,  and  so  appropri 
ately  called  a  "  Household  edition."  It  was  by  no 
means  a  waste  of  his  time  or  talents  for  an  author 
like  Dr.  Eggleston  to  undertake  such  a  work,  for  to 
History  of  the  produce  a  really  good  popular  history  is 
united  states.  an  encj  worthy  of  any  man's  ambition. 

This  history  is  ideally  good,  thanks  to  the  writer's 
skill  and  the  publishers'  liberality.  The  house  of 
Appletons  is  justly  famous  for  its  illustrated  books ; 
but  though  it  has  issued  volumes  far  more  costly  and 
of  greater  significance  as  works  of  art,  its  imprint  has 


EDWARD  EGGLESTON.  259 

never  been  placed  on  a  book  in  which  art  has  been 
more  successfully  made  the  handmaid  of  history. 
The  illustrations  were  selected  and  have  been  exe 
cuted  with  the  purpose  of  combining  artistic  excel 
lence  with  historic  significance,  and  this  mark  has 
been  hit  with  great  accuracy.  The  text  is  almost 
as  pictorial  as  the  illustrations;  the  author  has  caught 
the  secret  of  presenting  our  country's  history  in  a 
manner  that  may  fairly  be  described  as  panoramic. 
Though  intended  for  young  readers  especially,  it 
has  been  quite  as  fully  appreciated  by  their  elders, 
who  value  it  as  the  best  brief  history  of  their  country 
that  has  yet  been  published. 

The  chef  d'oeuvre  of  Dr.  Eggleston,  the  culmina 
tion  of  life-long  study  and  many  years'  exclusive  toil, 
is  a  history  of  the  American  people.  The  title  has 
been  announced  in  various  forms,  such  as  "  History  of 
Life  in  the  United  States,"  and  "  Life  in  the  His<:^ 
Thirteen  Colonies,"  —  or,  perhaps,  the  latter  d'oeuvre' 
is  only  a  sub-section  of  a  larger  work.  Chapters  of 
this  work  have  already  appeared  in  "  The  Century," 
and  have  aroused  expectation  to  a  very  high  pitch. 
Compared  with  the  form  in  which  it  will  ultimately 
appear,  this  serial  publication  may  be  regarded  as, 
in  a  sense,  only  the  first  rough  draft;  and  this  being 
the  case,  we  are  warranted  in  expecting  that  the 
completed  form  will  be  one  of  the  most  important 
historic  books  of  our  century. 

That  this  is  no  exaggerated  estimate  will  appear 
from  a  critical  examination  of  what  has  already  been 


26O  AMERICAN   WRITERS   OF  TO-DAY. 

printed.  There  are  histories  of  the  United  States  in 
great  plenty,  and  many  of  them  have  extraordinary 
Life  of  the  merit.  There  is  no  history,  however,  that 
people.  adequately  records  the  facts  of,  and  traces 

the  development  in,  the  life  of  the  people.  It  would 
be  uncritical  to  depreciate  the  value  of  those  histories 
that  devote  themselves  chiefly  to  a  record  of  events ; 
that  follow  the  rise,  growth,  and  decay  of  political 
parties,  or  thread  the  mazes  of  diplomacy ;  that  de 
scribe  great  campaigns  and  the  single  battles  which 
have  decided  the  destiny  of  the  continent ;  that  trace 
the  marvellous  development  of  industry  and  com 
merce.  All  of  these  things  are  important,  instruc 
tive,  and  interesting,  but  they  are  not  the  history  of 
the  people.  We  still  wish  to  know  what  manner  of 
men  and  women  our  forefathers  were,  how  and  what 
they  ate  and  drank  and  wherewithal  they  were  clothed, 
what  houses  they  lived  in,  and  what  other  creature 
comforts  they  enjoyed.  We  wish  to  understand  their 
social  customs,  to  penetrate  the  secret  of  their  re 
ligious  life,  even  to  hear  their  daily  gossip.  It  is  not 
beneath  the  dignity  of  history  to  concern  itself  about 
such  things,  and  we  cannot  say  that  we  have  mastered 
any  period  until  we  have  gained  such  knowledge  of  it. 
That  Dr.  Eggleston  is  capable  of  doing  this  sort  of 
work  incomparably  well  he  has  already  given  proof. 
He  has  now  spent  a  decade,  in  almost  entire  exclu 
sion  of  other  labors,  on  this  work;  and  when  the 
stately  volumes  appear,  they  cannot  fail  fitly  to  crown 
a  long,  a  varied,  a  useful,  a  highly  honorable  life. 


XVI. 

GEORGE  WASHINGTON  CABLE. 

ONE  hesitates  whether  to  call  Mr.  Cable  a 
representative  Southern  writer,  for  such  a 
characterization  might  give  offence.  And  yet,  con 
sidering  the  writings  by  which  he  is  chiefly  known 
and  on  which  his  fame  must  hereafter  rest,  one 
does  not  know  what  other  description  would  suit 
the  case.  If  a  man  born  and  bred  in  the  South,  of 
an  old  Southern  family,  whose  fictions  are  saturated 
with  the  South  and  reflect  its  life  with  photographic 
accuracy,  —  if  such  a  man  may  not  be  said  to  be  a 
representative  Southern  writer,  to  whom  HOW  far  a 

Southern 

may  that  phrase  be  applied?  It  is  true  writer. 
that  of  late  years  Mr.  Cable  has  become  out  of  favor 
in  the  South,  that  his  name  is  rarely  spoken  there 
without  some  adjective  of  condemnation  or  execra 
tion,  but  this  state  of  things  has  no  connection  with 
literature  proper.  It  is  not  because  of  his  novels, 
but  because  of  certain  political  writings  of  his,  that 
Mr.  Cable  has  thus  lost  the  favor  of  those  among 
whom  he  was  born  and  bred,  for  whom  he  shed  his 
blood,  and  with  whom  he  has  spent  the  greater  part 
of  his  life.  The  son  and  grandson  of  slaveholders, 


262  AMERICAN    WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 

he  has  dared  to  plead  the  cause  of  the  ex-slave,  dared 
to  oppose  the  dominant  idea  of  his  native  State, 
dared  to  speak  the  truth  as  he  sees  it,  though  in  a 
minority  of  one.  This  is  his  sin,  and  the  South  has 
pronounced  it  to  be  unpardonable.  Leaving  for  the 
present  this  political  question  wholly  to  one  side, 
let  us  consider  the  purely  literary  part  of  Mr. 
Cable's  work.  Most  of  this  was  produced  before 
his  political  heresies  were  promulgated,  and  has 
been  neither  bettered  nor  spoiled  by  those  heresies. 
It  has,  therefore,  a  double  claim  on  our  impartial 
consideration.  Even  those  who  condemn  most 
strongly  the  treason  of  Benedict  Arnold  do  not 
withhold  their  praise  of  his  services  at  Quebec, 
Lake  Champlain,  and  Saratoga.  In  like  manner 
even  they  who  regard  Mr.  Cable  as  a  traitor  to  his 
race,  his  State,  and  his  party,  may  without  incon 
sistency,  and  should  in  justice,  consider  his  earlier 
writings  apart  from  his  later. 

I. 

MR.  CABLE  was  born  in  New  Orleans,  October 
12,  1844.  Through  his  father  he  is  descended  from 
a  Virginia  family  of  German  origin.  His  mother 
was  a  New  Englander,  and  from  her  the  novelist 
derives  that  strain  of  Puritanism  so  evident  in  his 
character  as  in  his  work. 

It  is  good  for  a  man  to  bear  the  yoke  in  his 
youth,  to  have  his  sinews  toughened  and  his  will 


GEORGE    WASHINGTON  CABLE.  263 

braced  by  a  struggle  with  poverty,  provided  he 
really  is  a  man  and  not  a  weakling.  The  elder 
Cable  was  a  prosperous  man  of  business  Atoiisome 
until  1849,  when  he  failed.  After  his  youth- 
death  in  1859,  at  an  age  when  most  boys  have  noth 
ing  to  think  of  but  books  and  play,  young  Cable  was 
compelled  to  share  the  support  of  the  family.  He 
never  grumbled,  though  he  was  a  studious  lad  who 
would  have  liked  and  profited  by  a  liberal  education. 
He  had  a  liberal  education  indeed, —  not  in  any  col 
lege,  but  in  the  school  of  adversity,  —  and  it  made  of 
him  a  man  thoroughly  trained,  completely  equipped, 
able  to  hold  his  own  with  any. 

Hardly  had  young  Cable  begun  a  mercantile 
career  as  clerk  in  a  New  Orleans  house  when  the 
Civil  War  broke  out.  He  was  too  young  confederate 
to  serve  in  the  army  at  first,  though  his  soldien 
sympathies  were  naturally  with  his  State  and  the 
South;  but  in  1863  he  enlisted  in  the  Fourth 
Mississippi  Cavalry,  and  remained  in  the  service 
till  the  close  of  the  war.  He  was  a  good  soldier, 
and  bears  some  honorable  scars  to  testify  to  his 
valor.  After  the  war  he  had  a  somewhat  checkered 
life,  —  now  a  clerk,  afterwards  a  member  of  a  sur 
veying  and  exploring  party;  in  which  latter  work 
he  contracted  a  severe  malarial  fever,  from  which 
he  was  two  years  in  recovering.  This  was  by  no 
means  lost  time,  however,  for  in  these  years  he 
accumulated  much  of  the  material  of  which  later  he 
made  so  good  use. 


264  AMERICAN   WRITERS   OF  TO-DAY. 


II. 

MR.   CABLE,  like  many  other  American  writers, 

made  his  first  literary  venture  in  journalism.     He 

began  as  an  occasional  contributor  to  the 

TouTDilism. 

"New  Orleans  Picayune,"  and  as  his  com 
munications  found  favor  he  increased  their  frequency 
until  he  came  to  be  regarded  as  a  member  of  the 
staff.  The  story  has  been  told  that  his  connection 
with  the  paper  was  abruptly  severed  by  his  refusal, 
on  conscientious  grounds,  to  write  a  theatrical  criti 
cism  that  had  been  assigned  him,  but  his  own 
version  is  much  more  prosaic:  "The  true  cause  of 
my  dismissal  was  simply  that  as  a  reporter  I  was  a 
failure."  After  this  he  sought  and  obtained  em 
ployment  as  clerk  in  a  cotton-broker's  office,  and 
found  a  more  profitable  market  for  his  writings  at 
the  North.  It  was  about  this  time  that  "Scribner's 
Monthly  "  began  to  publish  short  tales  of  Creole  life 
by  Mr.  Cable.  From  the  first  these  received  a 
warm  welcome,  which  was  due  solely  to  their 
merits,  for  the  writer  was  unheralded  and  unknown. 
They  were  something  entirely  new  in  literature. 

Nobody,    with    knowledge  of   the    theme 

First  stories. 

and  ability  to  treat  it,  had  seriously 
attempted  to  depict  the  Creole  in  fiction,  and  Mr. 
Cable  was  therefore  fortunate  enough  to  offer  the 
novel-reader  that  which  he  dearly  loves,  an  entirely 
new  sensation.  The  true  epicure  does  not  welcome 


GEORGE    WASHINGTON  CABLE.  26$ 

with  more  enthusiasm  a  cook  who  has  invented  a 
new  and  delicious  sauce,  than  the  devotee  of  the 
novel  shows  in  the  reception  of  a  writer  who 
transports  him  into  the  midst  of  hitherto  unknown 
types  of  character  and  a  strange  social  atmosphere. 

These  stories  were  written  under  difficulties  that 
would  have  discouraged  most  men.  The  author's 
clerical  employment  filled  the  ordinary  working 
hours  of  the  day,  and  he  was  compelled  to  do  his 
work  in  minutes  snatched  from  what  time  most 
young  men  give  to  sleep  or  social  relaxation.  It 
was  his  habit  to  rise  at  four  o'clock  and  write  before 
breakfast,  and  some  of  his  best  work  was  done  in 
these  early  morning  hours.  Those  who  maintain 
that  if  a  young  man  has  any  genius  in  him  it  will 
somehow  find  expression  under  the  most  unfavor 
able  circumstances,  will  find  much  to  support  their 
thesis  in  the  life  of  Mr.  Cable.  After  all,  we 
probably  waste  our  sentiment  on  the  "mute,  inglo 
rious  Miltons"  and  those  "who  die  with  all  their 
music  in  them  "  of  whom  poets  sing  so  pathetically. 
Mute,  inglorious  Miltons  and  voiceless  singers  they 
would  doubtless  have  remained  had  they  Peraspera 
been  born  with  golden  spoons  in  their  adastra' 
mouths.  But  such  application  as  Mr.  Cable's  is 
trying  to  nerve  and  muscle,  and  we  need  not  wonder 
that  this  constant  brain  and  pen  work  caused  more 
than  one  break-down  in  health.  It  was  fortunate 
for  him  that  the  death  of  the  head  of  his  house  in 
1879  again  left  him  without  employment,  and  in  a 


266  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

way  forced  him  to  take  the  bold  step  of  devoting 
himself  to  literature.  It  was  a  great  risk;  for 
though  he  had  won  a  place  for  himself  as  a  magazine 
writer,  he  had  yet  to  show  that  he  had  staying 
power  or  was  capable  of  something  really  great. 
Only  one  of  a  thousand  succeeds  in  such  an  experi 
ment,  but  Mr.  Cable  proceeded  to  prove  that  he 
was  one  of  a  thousand. 


III. 

THE  same  year  that  marked  the  beginning  of  a 
purely  literary  life  saw  the  publication  of  Mr. 
Creole  life  Cable's  first  volume,  "Old  Creole  Days," 
in  fiction.  a  couection  Of  seven  stories  of  Creole 
life.  They  had  not  only  the  good  fortune  already 
mentioned,  of  freshness  of  substance,  but  the  addi 
tional  advantage  of  novelty  of  form.  Mr.  Cable 
was  one  of  the  pioneers  in  the  dialect  tale,  and 
dialect  was  not  reckoned  in  those  days  as  something 
to  be  forgiven  an  author,  but  as  one  of  his  titles 
to  distinction,  provided  it  were  skilfully  managed. 
The  "New  Orleans  Picayune"  was  at  that  time 
proud  of  the  fledgling  it  had  shoved  out  from  the 
nest  to  try  his  wings  in  literature,  and  not  afraid  to 
speak  the  truth  about  him;  so  it  said:  "The  careful 
rendering  of  the  Creole  dialect  reveals  patient  study 
of  living  models;  and  to  any  reader  whose  ear  is 
accustomed  to  the  broken  English  as  heard  in  the 
parts  of  our  city  every  day,  its  truth  to  nature  is 


GEORGE    WASHINGTON   CABLE.  267 

striking."  It  hardly  needed  testimony  of  this  kind 
to  establish  the  accuracy  of  Mr.  Cable's  literary 
methods,  for  his  stories  are  self -evidencing,  and 
anybody  who  should  challenge  their  faithfulness 
would  have  a  large  fund  of  incredulity  to  overcome. 
The  adequacy  of  his  representations  of  Creole  life 
has,  indeed,  been  challenged  by  authorities  worthy 
of  respect.  It  is  one  thing  to  maintain  that  his 
work  is  faithful  as  far  as  it  goes,  and  another  to 
hold  that  it  is  exhaustive.  Mr.  Cable  has  never 
made  this  absurd  claim,  and  no  friend  has  made  it 
on  his  behalf. 

These  stories  established  their  author's  right  to 
be  numbered  with  the  greatest  artists  of  American 
literature.  It  has  appeared  from  his  his- 

Great  artist. 

tory  that  he  is  mainly  a  self-educated 
man,  with  no  literary  atmosphere,  no  association 
with  men  of  letters,  to  influence  his  development. 
So  far  as  can  be  judged,  until  he  was  able  to  buy 
for  himself,  his  access  to  books  was  very  limited. 
A  natural  aptitude  for  literature,  an  innate  gift  of 
expression,  improved  by  much  practice  and  severe 
self-criticism,  gave  him  command  of  a  style  almost 
perfect  for  his  purposes.  It  is  a  style  of  limpid 
clearness,  of  easy  grace,  not  much  given  to  orna 
mentation,  and  pleasingly  destitute  of  mannerisms; 
a  style  of  pure  English,  instinct  with  life  and 
passion,  sometimes  reaching  the  borderland  of 
poetry,  but  still  oftener  delighting  by  its  delicate 
humor.  In  these  stories  laughter  and  tears  lie  near 


268  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 

together,  their  pathos  and  even  tragedy  being  as 
true  and  moving  as  their  humor.  It  is  seldom 
given  to  any  author  to  sweep  the  whole  gamut  of 
human  emotions  with  a  touch  so  sure,  yet  so  light 
and  easeful,  as  that  of  Mr.  Cable. 

This  first  volume,   delightful  as   it  was,   did  not 

prove  that  the  author  had  the  constructive  power 

necessary  to  the  writing  of  a  novel.      He 

Novels.  * 

might  easily  have  been  such  an  one  as 
Bret  Harte,  a  writer  of  unsurpassed  short  stories 
who  loses  his  cunning  when  he  undertakes  to  fill  in 
a  large  canvas.  A  painter  would  say  of  a  writer  of 
this  type  that  his  drawing  and  coloring  are  good, 
but  that  he  cannot  compose.  Mr.  Cable  set  all 
doubts  of  his  quality  at  rest  by  immediately  pro 
ducing  "The  Grandissimes,"  which,  after  running 
as  a  serial  in  "Scribner's,"  was  published  in  book 
form  in  1880.  This  was  followed  in  1881  by 
"Madame  Delphine,"  and  in  1883  by  "Dr.  Sevier." 
Here  is  a  trio  of  books  not  easily  equalled  in  re 
cent  American  literature,  and  probably  never  sur 
passed,  certainly  not  among  fictions  distinctively 
"American."  For  not  the  most  fastidious  of  for 
eign  critics  can  withhold  that  adjective  from  Mr. 
Cable's  work,  it  is  so  obviously  autochthonous,  — • 
it  could  by  no  possibility  have  been  written  by 
any  one  but  an  American  who  had  studied  the 
Creole  character  from  the  life,  and  had  known  from 
boyhood  the  scenes  among  which  his  characters 
move. 


GEORGE    WASHINGTON  CABLE.  269 

Since  the  publication  of  these  books  Mr.  Cable 
has  produced  no  more  novels,  though  he  has  written 
a  number  of  stories  that  might  be  called 

Later  writings. 

novelettes.  Three  of  these  —  Grande 
Pointe,"  "  Carancro,"  and  "  Au  Large  "  —  have  been 
included  in  one  volume  under  the  general  title  of 
"  Bonaventure  "  (1887).  This  book,  one  is  justified 
in  saying,  is  not  so  much  a  novel  as  a  collection  of 
novelettes.  A  still  more  recent  book,  "  Strange 
True  Stories  of  Louisiana,"  is  rather  compiled  and 
revised  by  Mr.  Cable  than  written  by  him,  being 
composed  of  manuscripts  by  various  inexperienced 
writers,  that  he  has  retouched.  This  is  a  sort  of 
literary  collaboration  that  is  likely  to  cause  him 
more  annoyance  than  it  can  bring  him  fame,  since 
some  of  the  original  writers  have  made  public 
accusations  of  unfair  treatment,  which,  however 
unfounded  they  are,  must  be  unpleasant  in  the 
extreme. 

It  would  not  be  fair  to  say  that  in  the  trio  of 
novels  above  named  Mr.  Cable  had  exhausted  his 
resources,  but  we  are  perhaps  warranted  in  con 
cluding  that  in  them  his  genius  found,  for  the  time 
at  least,  its  full  expression,  since  in  the  ten  years 
that  succeeded  the  publication  of  "  Dr.  Sevier"  he 
had  no  other  message  of  the  kind  to  speak  to  the 
world.  By  waiting  until  "the  angel  says,  Write," 
he  proved  that  he  respects  himself,  his  public,  and 
his  art  too  much  to  produce  his  yearly  volume, 
whether  it  be  good  or  bad. 


2/O  AMERICAN  WRITERS   OF  TO-DAY. 


IV. 

MR.  CABLE  is  remarkable  among  American  novel 
ists  for  a  rare  combination  of  aesthetic  and  religious 
A  rare  com-  endowments.  In  no  other  American 
bination.  fiction,  unless  it  be  in  Hawthorne's,  do 
we  find  the  highest  artistic  instinct  and  the  pro- 
foundest  moral  purpose  so  wedded.  In  truth,  even 
the  exception  of  Hawthorne  cannot  be  allowed,  for 
he  is  psychologic  rather  than  moral,  an  observer  and 
analyzer  of  moral  problems,  and  coldly  critical,  not 
sympathetic,  in  his  treatment  of  them.  But  in  Mr. 
Cable  the  moral  purpose  is  almost  stronger  than  the 
aesthetic  instinct;  rather  they  exist  in  his  work  in 
a  balance  so  perfect  that  neither  can  be  said  to 
overtop  the  other.  The  worship  of  the  beautiful  and 
the  worship  of  the  good  are  in  general  unequally 
yoked  together  when  they  are  united  at  all.  We 
have  aesthetes  in  plenty,  like  Wilde  and  Pater,  who 
will  discourse  eloquently  on  the  holiness  of  beauty; 
and  there  is  no  lack  of  divines  who  will  discourse 
with  equal  eloquence  on  the  beauty  of  holiness;  but 
not  to  one  man  of  letters  in  generations  is  it  given 
to  see  and  to  understand  and  to  embody  both. 

It  is  this  unique  combination  that  has  embroiled 

Mr.  Cable  with  his  former  friends  and  admirers  in 

the  South.     All  that  he  afterwards  said 

in  "The  Silent  South"  and  "The  Negro 

Question  "  is  potentially  present  in  his  fiction.     He 


GEORGE    WASHINGTON  CABLE.  2/1 

is,  as  has  been  said  before,  the  son  of  one  slave 
holder  and  the  grandson  of  another,- — of  two  others, 
for  that  matter,  —  but  nothing  can  make  one  believe 
that  he  could  ever  have  been  a  slave-owner  himself, 
not  even  if  slaves  had  come  to  him  by  inheritance. 
If  this  seems  too  positive  an  utterance,  let  the 
doubter  read  the  history  of  Bras-Coupe  in  "The 
Grandissimes."  No  abolitionist  ever  scourged  the 
institution  of  slavery  with  words  more  fiery  than 
those  that  tell  that  hideous  tale.  Yet  Southerners 
tolerated  this,  if  they  did  not  precisely  admire  it. 
The  reason  is  plain :  slavery  was  a  defunct  institu 
tion,  and  nothing  in  this  world  is  deader  than  a 
dead  political  issue.  Slavery,  that  caused  the  blood 
iest  civil  war  known  to  history  in  1861,  had  not  a 
living  apologist  twenty  years  later;  and  where  a 
disrespectful  word  would  once  have  been  another 
name  for  suicide,  burning  sarcasm  and  piercing 
irony  passed  unresented  if  not  quite  approved. 

But  when  Mr.  Cable  ventured  to  touch  a  political 
question  of  his  day,  when  he  tired  of  denouncing  a 
dead  abuse  and  dared  to  drag  into  the  unpopularity 
light  a  monstrous  living  wrong,  —  ah,  that  m  the  South* 
was  quite  another  story.  Languid  indifference 
changed  with  the  rapidity  of  thought  to  fierce 
hatred.  Toleration  gave  place  to  abuse,  and  would 
have  given  place  to  persecution  had  not  Mr.  Cable, 
fortunately  for  himself,  placed  himself  beyond  the 
reach  of  anything  but  bad  language.  This  outburst 
of  impotent  rage  was  far  from  creditable  to  the 


2/2  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TODAY. 

South.  Mr.  Cable  may  have  been  wrong,  —  many 
Northern  readers,  who  might  be  expected  to  agree 
with  him,  think  that  he  is  wrong,  or  at  any  rate 
only  partially  right,  —  but  his  courage  was  worthy 
of  respect,  and  he  should  have  been  answered  with 
fact  and  argument,  not  with  billingsgate.  Even 
less  creditable  than  their  angry  replies  has  been  the 
suggestion  by  Southern  writers  of  unworthy  motives 
on  Mr.  Cable's  part,  —  that  he  desired  to  curry  favor 
with  his  Northern  public,  and  to  do  this  was  willing 
to  turn  his  pen  against  his  own  people.  The  insinu 
ation  is  worse  than  base,  it  is  silly.  Mr.  Cable 

Courage  that  already  had  the  favor  of  Northern  read- 
deserved  ad 
miration,  ers,  and  he  had  nothing  further  to  de 
sire  in  this  direction.  He  was  recognized  as  the 
peer  of  Howells  and  James  and  Aldrich,  and  what 
ever  he  might  write  on  political  or  social  questions 
could  not  set  him  higher.  Without  the  possibil 
ity  or  the  hope  of  advancing  his  own  fortunes, 
he  deliberately  risked  his  popularity  among  his 
own  people  to  tell  them  what  he  believed  to  be  the 
truth.  Courage  like  this  deserved  the  admiration 
that  we  of  the  North  do  not  hesitate  to  award  to 
the  valor  of  those  who  fought  so  well  in  what  we 
firmly  believe  to  have  been  a  bad  cause. 

Perhaps   the   feeling   against   Mr.    Cable    in  the 
South   is  due  not  merely  to  what  he  has  written, 

Residence  in         ^Ut  to    tne    ^act    that    ne    naS    taken  Up  his 

the  North.  residence  in  the  Northt  It  should  be 
borne  in  mind,  however,  that  the  temptation  for  a 


GEORGE    WASHINGTON  CABLE.  2/3 

Southern  man  of  letters  to  do  this  is  almost  over 
whelming.  However  proud  the  South  may  be  of 
its  writers,  it  does  not  offer  them  an  adequate  sup 
port.  It  is  Northern  capital  that  publishes  the 
books  of  Southern  writers.  Northern  enterprise 
pushes  their  sale,  and  Northern  readers  for  the 
most  part  buy  them.  A  writer  who  chooses,  as 
Mr.  Cable  did  for  several  years,  to  add  to  his 
income  by  giving  public  readings  from  his  writings, 
must  look  to  Northern  cities  for  his  audiences. 
Since  this  is  so,  and  so  long  as  it  continues  to  be 
so,  a  Northern  residence  must  offer  great  advan 
tages.  It  is  a  convenience  for  a  writer  to  be  near 
his  publishers,  for  a  lecturer  to  be  within  easy  reach 
of  his  audiences,  even  in  these  days  when  telegraph 
and  fast  express  almost  annihilate  space.  Besides, 
since  when  has  a  man  lost  the  right  in  free  America 
to  live  where  he  chooses  and  to  change  his  resi 
dence  as  often  as  he  pleases? 

The  feeling  against  Mr.  Cable  will  pass  away. 
His  political  writings  are  a  mere  episode  in  his  life, 
and  are  necessarily  ephemeral.  In  after  years  the 
antiquarian  and  the  historian  may  curiously  peer 
into  their  pages,  if  perchance  a  copy  survives,  but 
his  fictions  are  as  imperishable  as  the  language. 
The  South  will  yet  come  to  a  better  mind,  and  will 
see  in  Mr.  Cable  one  of  her  most  gifted  sons,  —  not 
infallible,  but  honest,  high-minded,  and  courageous, 
possessed,  in  a  word,  of  the  very  virtues  always 

18 


2/4  AMERICAN    WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

most  admired  and  cherished  by  his  compatriots. 
And  his  books  will  stand  forth,  while  American 
literature  is  read,  as  a  perfect  picture  of  a  unique 
civilization,  unsurpassed  in  finish  among  the  work 
of  his  time,  and  inspired  by  that  love  of  God  and 
one's  neighbor  which  is  more  than  all  whole  burnt 
offerings  and  sacrifices. 


XVII. 

RICHARD   HENRY   STODDARD. 

"  T  ITERATURE  is  a  great  staff,  but  a  sorry 
-• — '  crutch."  That  is  as  true  to-day  as  when 
Scott  said  it,  and  it  is  true,  because,  in  the  words  of 
Mr.  Froude,  "  literature  happens  to  be  the  only  oc 
cupation  in  which  wages  are  not  given  in  proportion 
to  the  goodness  of  the  work  done."  It  is  doubtless  a 
fact  that  the  born  writer  finds  in  his  labor  his  highest 
compensation,  but  this  is  no  more  true  of  "The times 

are  out  of 

him  than  of  any  other  worker  who  puts  i°int-" 
heart  and  soul  into  his  occupation,  and  is  not  a  mere 
hireling.  The  laborer  is  worthy  of  his  hire,  whatever 
his  labor.  Whoever  devotes  himself  to  an  occupation 
that  has  for  its  result  the  ennobling  of  his  race,  the 
enrichment  of  men's  minds,  the  enlargement  of  their 
field  of  mental  and  moral  vision,  is  fairly  entitled  to  a 
comfortable  living.  The  world  owes  at  least  this  to 
him.  And  yet,  unless  he  possesses  the  happy  faculty 
of  making  his  writings  salable,  unless  he  is  willing  to 
produce  merely  what  men  will  buy  and  leave  undone 
the  higher  work  of  which  he  is  capable,  the  writer 
may  starve  for  all  the  world  cares.  The  life  and 
work  of  Mr.  Stoddard  are  a  saddening  instance 


2/6  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 

of  the  short-sightedness  of  mankind,  of  the  imper 
fection  of  our  present  social  order,  of  the  way  in 
which  a  man  may  be  compelled  to  waste  endow- 
ments  of  a  high  order,  that  he  may  wring  from  a 
niggard  world  a  bare  subsistence. 


MR.  STODDARD  was  born  in  Hingham,  Mass.,  July 
2,  1825.  He  lost  his  father,  a  sea-captain,  at  an  early 
age,  and  in  1835  his  mother,  who  had  married  again, 
removed  to  New  York.  Since  then  his  life 
has  been  identified  with  the  life  of  the 
metropolis.  His  education,  such  as  it  was,  he  gained 
in  the  public  schools  of  the  city,  but  it  could  not  have 
extended  beyond  a  rather  limited  course  in  the  ordi 
nary  English  branches.  While  still  a  mere  lad  he 
went  to  work  in  an  iron  foundry,  and  remained  there 
several  years.  Had  he  been  just  an  ordinary,  average 
boy,  with  a  shrewd  gift  of  making  a  good  bargain  and 
a  half  miserly  capacity  for  saving  money,  and  had  he 
devoted  himself  with  all  his  soul  to  the  iron  business, 
he  might  have  died  many  times  a  millionnaire,  envied 
by  all  and  possibly  respected  by  some.  He  chose  the 
better  part.  He  preferred  lifelong  poverty,  compara 
tively  speaking,  and  the  culture  of  mind  and  heart,  to 
wealth  and  narrowness.  If,  as  Seneca  thinks,  the  gods 
are  well  pleased  when  they  see  great  men  contending 
with  adversity,  Mr.  Stoddard  must  have  afforded  the 


RICHARD   HENRY  STODDARD  2/7 

gods  much  delight,  for  his  life  has  been  one  struggle 
with  adverse  fortune. 

None  of  our  American  authors  has  begun  a  literary 
career  with  less  of  outward  encouragement  or  with 
a  more  slender  stock  of  endowment.  By  endow 
ment,  one  of  course  means  visible  qualification.  For 
one  so  slightly  educated,  compelled  to  S]ight  cncour. 
labor  for  daily  bread,  with  neither  leisure  agement> 
for  culture  nor  friends  to  encourage  and  assist  him, 
—  for  such  a  lad  to  cherish  literary  aspirations 
would  have  seemed  to  most  people  a  ridiculous 
height  of  presumption.  And  so  it  would  have  been 
in  one  less  clearly  conscious  of  his  calling.  "  Blessed 
are  they  that  hunger  and  thirst  after  knowledge,  for 
they  shall  be  filled,"  is  a  beatitude  not  written  in 
Scripture,  it  is  true;  but  it  is  written  in  the  divine 
order  of  the  universe,  and  it  was  fulfilled  in  the  case 
of  young  Stoddard.  His  evenings  were  given  to  the 
study  of  the  best  English  authors,  and  particularly  of 
the  poets.  Already  his  soul  was  fired  with  the  thought 
that  he  too  would  yet  be  a  poet. 

What  did  more  than  all  else  to  develop  this  hope, 
this  aspiration,  into  a  reality  was  his  good  fortune  in 
making  the  acquaintance  of  other  young  men  of  let 
ters  in  New  York,  —  Bayard  Taylor,  Edmund  Clarence 
Stedman,  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich,  and  others.     The 
acquaintance    with    Taylor    was    earliest,   Budding 
most  intimate,  and  had  the  greatest  effect  authors- 
on  his  character.     Taylor  was  fresh  from  Europe  and 
the  publication  of  his  "  Views  Afoot,"  which  had  given 


2/8  AMERICAN  WRITERS   OF   TO-DAY. 

him  a  recognized  standing  among  young  authors. 
Stoddard  was  his  junior  only  a  few  months  by  the 
calendar,  but  several  years  his  junior  in  literary  ex 
perience,  and  as  yet  wholly  unknown  to  fame.  Both 
had  to  give  their  days  to  hard  toil,  —  Stoddard  to  his 
foundry  and  Taylor  to  the  "  Tribune,"  where  he 
worked  fifteen  hours  a  day,  scribbling  leaders,  book- 
notices,  foreign  letters,  and  generally  doing  the  work 
now  assigned  to  three  or  four  men  on  the  "  Tribune  " 
staff.  Only  their  evenings  were  theirs,  and  of  these 
but  one,  Saturday  evening,  was  really  free.  These 
Saturday  nights  were  passed  in  each  other's  company, 
and  they  were  in  a  sense  the  making  of  Stoddard. 
They  drew  out  of  him  what  was  latent ;  intelligent  and 
sympathetic  companionship  supplemented  the  culture 
he  was  gaining  from  books  and  the  practice  of  com 
position,  and  under  this  genial  stimulus  his  powers 
rapidly  expanded. 

The  same  year  (1849)  that  witnessed  the  beginning 
of  this  friendship,  which  was  to  be  broken  only  by 
Taylor's  untimely  death,  also  saw  the  pub 
lication  of  the  youthful  poet's  first  volume 
of  verses,  under  the  title  of  "Footprints."     It  was 
privately  printed,  and  he  was  so  little  proud  of  it  that 
he  afterward  destroyed  the  edition. 

"  'T  is  pleasant,  sure,  to  see  one's  name  in  print ; 
A  book 's  a  book,  although  there  's  nothing  in  V 

Many  a  young  bardling  enjoys  this  pleasure  at  his 
own  expense,  but  few  have  the  grace  to  repent  their 
folly  so  promptly,  and  to  repair  it  by  the  one  means 


RICHARD  HENRY  STOOD  A  RD.  2/9 

in  their  power.  There  is  hope  for  such,  and  their 
second  ventures  are  likely  to  be  worthier  of  a  better 
fate. 

Soon  after  this  another  great  event  befell  the  poet. 
His  friend  Taylor  went  to  Europe  again.  The  young 
poet  was  lonely,  he  had  a  present  none  too  assured, 
and  a  future  still  less  certain,  so  he  naturally  married. 
His  fortune  was  better  than  perhaps  so 

Marriage. 

headlong  an  act  deserved,  and  could 
hardly  have  been  greater  had  he  acted  with  the  most 
approved  worldly  wisdom.  Elizabeth  Barstow,  also 
of  Massachusetts  birth,  was  the  exact  counterpart  of 
Mr.  Stoddard  in  the  other  sex.  She,  too,  was  and  is 
a  poet  whose  graceful  verses  are  worthy  of  high  praise, 
but  she  has  taken  even  higher  rank  as  a  novelist.  It 
is  really  one  of  the  curiosities  of  literature  that  her 
books  have  not  won  a  wider  recognition,  a  more 
general  admiration,  from  readers  of  American  fiction. 
They  are  high  favorites,  and  have  been  from  the  first, 
of  those  who  are  fitted  to  appreciate  work  of  enduring 
qualities,  and  they  will  continue  to  be  read  when  cur 
rent  trash  has  fallen  to  its  real  value  as  junk.  There 
have  been  some  signs  of  late  that  tardy  fame  is  about 
to  overtake  Mrs.  Stoddard,  and  one  hopes  that  the 
event  may  justify  this  forecast.  This  union  of  hearts 
and  labors  is  almost  the  one  instance  of  the  kind  in 
American  literature,  —  at  least,  it  is  almost  the  only 
one  that  has  endured  for  an  ordinary  lifetime  all  the 
vicissitudes  of  fortune,  growing  more  beautiful  and 
more  helpful  with  every  passing  year. 


280  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 


II. 

BY  1851  Mr.  Stoddard  was  fairly  launched  in  litera 
ture.  He  published  that  year  a  second  volume  of 
verse,  that  ranked  him  at  once  among  the  promising 
young  poets  ;  and  this  was  followed  in  1856  by  "  Songs 
Songs  of  °f  Summer,"  which  set  his  name  still  higher 
on  the  roll.  He  found  more  fame  than 
dollars  in  poetry,  however,  and  was  compelled  to  turn 
his  hand  to  work  of  various  kinds  to  secure  a  liveli 
hood.  Through  Hawthorne's  influence,  it  is  said,  he 
obtained  in  1853  a  clerkship  in  the  New  York  Custom 
House,  which  he  held  until  1870,  after  which  he  held 
other  like  positions  for  periods  more  or  less  brief, 
until  in  1879  he  plunged  into  literature  once  for  all, 
sink  or  swim.  He  has  never  sunk,  but  one  may 
guess  that  he  has  often  found  it  hard  swimming. 

It  would  not  be  easy  to  name  the  other  American 
author  who  has  done  so  much  hard  work  for  so  insig 
nificant  pay.  Mr.  Stoddard  has  been  all  his  life  a 
most  laborious  man,  working  harder  than  any  mechanic 
in  town  and  receiving  wages  but  little  better  than 
those  of  a  clever  mechanic.  Most  of  this  labor  has 
Pegasus  a  been  mere  hack  work.  One  says  this  in  no 
piough-horse.  disparagement  of  Mr.  Stoddard,  or  of  the 
usefulness  of  what  he  has  done,  but  in  hot  indignation 
of  soul  that  Pegasus  should  thus  be  put  to  the  plough. 
It  is  we,  the  public,  who  are  to  blame  for  such  a  state 
of  things ;  we  should  take  shame  to  ourselves  that  we 


RICHARD  HENRY  STODDARD.  28 1 

have  allowed  such  a  man  to  fritter  away  his  powers 
on  work  that  any  penny-a-liner  could  do,  —  not  so 
well,  doubtless,  but  well  enough.  Mr.  Stoddard  has 
not  complained ;  he  has  borne  his  burden  as  a  brave 
man  should,  cheerfully,  nobly,  but  the  iron  must  have 
entered  into  his  soul. 

The  critic  will  be  justified  in  passing  by  all  of  this 
work  with  a  brief  word  of  praise  for  its  conscientious 
ness.  It  was  not  written  to  live,  but  to  live  by.  Mr. 
Stoddard  has  written  prose  because  he  must;  he 
writes  poetry  because  he  cannot  help  it.  His  prose 
writings  may  be,  without  any  disrespect  to  them  or 
him,  simply  labelled  "  pot  boilers  "  and  laid  aside. 
They  fulfilled  their  purpose  when  they  His 
amused  a  passing  hour,  or  set  afloat  again  writ[n^- 
a  half-forgotten  piece  of  standard  literature.  The 
author  deserves  for  this  part  of  his  labor  precisely 
the  praise  that  a  good  maker  of  shoes  deserves,  — 
he  has  put  his  heart  and  conscience  into  the  task  by 
which  he  wins  his  daily  bread,  and  has  done  it  well. 
But  task  work  it  is,  and  task  work  it  will  remain. 


III. 

THE  case  is  totally  different,  however,  when  we 
come  to  Mr.  Stoddard's  poetry.  We  are  conscious 
in  a  moment  of  breathing  a  different  atmosphere. 
In  the  prose  writings  we  find  him  a  workman,  here 
we  find  him  an  artist;  in  the  former  he  is  honest, 


282  AMERICAN  WRIl^ERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

cultivated,  painstaking,  conscientious,  but  in  the 
latter  he  is  a  man  of  genius. 

Besides  the  volumes  of  verse  already  named,  he 
published  "The  King's  Bell"  (1863),  "The  Book 
Twobooks  °f  tne  East"  (1871),  and  a  complete 
of  verse.  edition  of  his  poetical  works  in  1880, 

which  makes  a  book  of  nearly  five  hundred  pages. 
This  is  not  a  remarkably  bulky  tome,  considering 
the  fact  that  it  represents  a  lifetime's  devotion  to 
the  muses;  but  when  one  also  considers  the  dis 
tractions  and  difficulties  under  which  the  work  has 
been  done,  it  is  a  striking  proof  of  what  has  already 
been  said,  —  that  Mr.  Stoddard  writes  poetry  because 
he  cannot  help  doing  it. 

The  striking  characteristic  of  the  earlier  poems, 
included  in  the  edition  of  1880,  is  the  passionate 
love  of  beauty  that  inspires  them.  If  one  were  to 
pay  Mr.  Stoddard  the  insulting  compliment  of  call 
ing  him  "The  American ,"  one  would  instinct 
ively  fill  out  the  blank  with  the  name  of 

Keats.  r     . 

Keats  after  reading  some  of  these  poems. 
The  style  is  not  that  of  Keats,  the  resemblance  is 
not  verbal  and  formal,  such  as  results  from  imita 
tion;  it  is  only  that  the  youthful  American  poet 
was  a  twin  soul  of  the  Briton.  If  a  reader  should 
find  such  verses,  for  example,  in  a  collection  of 
extracts  from  Keats,  he  would  feel  no  incongruity, 
though  he  might  say,  "  From  what  poem  by  Keats 
are  these  taken  ?  I  do  not  remember  to  have  seen 
them  before." 


RICHARD  HENRV  STODDARD.  283 

"  From  earliest  infancy  my  heart  was  thine, 

With  childish  feet  I  trod  thy  temple  aisles ; 

Not  knowing  tears,  I  worshipped  thee  with  smiles, 
Or  if  I  wept  it  was  with  joy  divine. 
By  day,  and  night,  on  land,  and  sea,  and  air, 

I  saw  thee  everywhere. 
A  voice  of  greeting  from  the  wind  was  sent, 

The  mists  enfolded  me  with  soft  white  arms, 
The  birds  did  sing  to  lap  me  in  content, 

The  rivers  wore  their  charms, 
And  every  little  daisy  in  the  grass 
Did  look  up  in  my  face,  and  smile  to  see  me  pass." 

These  lines  are  taken  from  a  "Hymn  to  the 
Beautiful ;  "  and  possibly  the  form  of  the  stanza  and 
its  musical  quality,  as  well  as  the  title, 

Prodigal  fancy. 

might  suggest  to  the  reader  Shelley  and 
his  "Hymn  to  Intellectual  Beauty."  But  whatever 
poets  may  have  strongly  influenced  Mr.  Stoddard 
in  his  earlier  years,  no  one  poet  dominated  him. 
His  was  a  catholic  taste,  a  universal  worship  of  the 
beautiful,  and  he  could  appreciate  what  was  good  or 
great  in  every  English  poet.  As  his  mind  matured, 
these  suggestions  of  other  poets  disappear  from  his 
verse,  and  his  style  becomes  more  distinctive,  more 
individual.  The  passion  for  beauty,  however,  does 
not  become  weaker.  In  the  "Songs  of  Summer," 
published  during  the  flower  of  his  young  manhood, 
there  is  almost  a  tropical  luxuriance  of  feeling,  and  a 
prodigality  of  fancy  not  always  matched  by  felicity 
of  expression.  The  emphasis  sometimes  seems 
overstrained,  and  the  thought  is  not  always  strictly 


284  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 

coherent.  Other  American  men  of  letters  have 
amused  themselves  by  parodying  this  manner,  some 
times  with  very  amusing  results.  There  is,  how 
ever,  much  verse  in  this  collection  that  shows  full 
mastery  of  the  poet's  art,  and  some  of  the  gems 
that  one  can  find  here  and  there  are  of  the  first 
water;  for  instance,  this,  — 

"  The  sky  is  a  drinking-cup, 

That  was  overturned  of  old, 
And  it  pours  in  the  eyes  of  men 
Its  wine  of  airy  gold. 

"  We  drink  that  wine  all  day, 

Till  the  last  drop  is  drained  up, 
And  we  are  lighted  off  to  bed 
By  the  jewels  in  the  cup  !  w 


IV. 

IN  his  later  poems,  Mr.  Stoddard  has  essayed 
some  higher  flights.  Some  of  his  narrative  poems 
are  rare  examples  of  the  art  of  telling  a  story  in 
verse;  among  which  may  be  named  "The  King's 
Bell,"  "The  King's  Sentinel,"  and  "The  Pearl  of 
the  Philippines."  This  is  not  a  gift  that  is  greatly 
valued  in  these  days,  more  's  the  pity,  and  the  poet 
who  has  it  is  pretty  sure  to  conclude  that 

"  There 's  a  luck  in  most  things,  and  in  none 
More  than  in  being  born  at  the  right  time ; 
It  boots  not  what  the  labor  to  be  done, 
Or  feats  of  arms,  or  art,  or  building  rhyme. 
Not  that  the  heavens  the  little  can  make  great, 
But  many  a  man  has  lived  an  age  too  late." 


RICHARD  HENRY  STODDARD.  285 

Of  a  quality  better  appreciated  by  readers,  if  not 
more  highly  praised  by  critics,  are  such  poems  as 
the  Horatian  ode  on  Abraham  Lincoln,  Odeon 
which  one  is  much  inclined  to  pronounce  Llncoln- 
not  only  the  best  thing  Mr.  Stoddard  has  ever 
written,  but  the  best  thing  any  poet  has  written  on 
Lincoln,  saving  only  Mr.  Lowell's  unapproached 
"Commemoration  Ode."  There  are  in  it  fewer  lines 
felicitously  quotable  than  in  Lowell's  ode,  yet 
such  as  the  following  come  little  short  of  that 
excellence :  — 

"  One  of  the  People  !    Born  to  be 
Their  curious  epitome." 

"  No  hasty  fool,  of  stubborn  will, 
But  prudent,  cautious,  pliant  still." 

..."  his  genius  put  to  scorn 
The  proudest  in  the  purple  born, 

Whose  wisdom  never  grew 

To  what,  untaught,  he  knew." 

Quite  perfect,  both  in  thought  and  expression,  is 
the  tender  poem  "  Adsum,"  on  the  death  of  Thack 
eray  ;  and  quite  as  appreciative,  though  less  tenderly 
pathetic,    are   the   verses    entitled    "At   Gadshill." 
One  cannot  highly  commend  what  are  perhaps  the 
most   ambitious    performances    in    this    edition    of 
1880,  —"Guests  of  the  State,"  a  centen-  Occask)nal 
nial    ode,     and    "History,"    a    poem    in   poems> 
Spenserian  stanza  read  before  the  Phi  Beta  Kappa 


286  AMERICAN  WRITERS   OF  TO-DAY. 

Society  of  Harvard.  To  attempt  to  write  a  great 
poem  for  a  great  occasion  is  to  invite  failure,  and 
the  few  who  succeed  do  so  by  some  fortunate  acci 
dent.  Occasional  poems  for  the  most  part,  except 
such  witty  and  familiar  verses  as  the  "Autocrat" 
succeeded  in  turning  off,  have  added  more  to  the 
bulk  than  to  the  glory  of  American  literature. 

One  who  goes  through  this  edition  of  Mr.  Stod- 
dard's  verse  carefully,  checking  off  only  those 
Popular  poems  without  which  American  literature 

ignorance.  wouid  be  distinctly  poorer,  will  have  a 
new  idea  of  the  extent  and  value  of  the  work  the 
poet  has  done.  The  contemporary  fame  of  authors 
furnishes  some  of  the  most  curious  puzzles  of  liter 
ature.  That  Southey  should  ever  have  been  con 
sidered  a  great  poet  while  Shelley  was  practically 
unknown,  is  something  that  we  of  to-day  can  never 
fully  comprehend;  and  the  history  of  literature  is 
full  of  just  such  strange  facts.  Mention  the  poems 
of  Stoddard  to  intelligent  and  well-read  friends,  — 
who  know  their  Lowell  and  Bryant,  their  Stedman 
and  Aldrich,  and  who  know  Stoddard  the  clever 
magazinist  and  editor  of  books,  —  and  one  is  likely 
to  be  met  by  the  saying,  "  Why,  I  never  knew  that 
he  wrote  any  poetry."  So  astounding  ignorance  in 
quarters  where  knowledge  might  fairly  be  expected 
is  inexplicable,  unless,  indeed,  it  be  due  to  this, 
that  as  prolific  essayist  and  industrious  editor,  Mr. 
Stoddard  has  eclipsed  himself  as  poet.  Certainly, 
for  whatever  cause,  he  is  less  known  to  Americans, 


RICHARD  HENRY  STODDARD.  28/ 

even  to  those  who  love  the  literature  of  their 
country,  than  he  deserves  to  be.  This  cannot 
always  remain  true.  The  man  who  has  a  genuine 
call  to  write  may  say  with  Philip  of  Spain,  "  I  and 
time  against  any  two,"  —  nay,  against  the  world. 

Much  as  he  merits  our  praise  and  admiration  for 
what  he  has  actually  done,  this  is  a  man  who  still 
more  should  receive  our  homage  for  what  A  priceless 
he  has  attempted.  It  is  something  in  example> 
these  days,  when  the  sordid  and  selfish  pursuit  of 
wealth  absorbs  so  much  of  what  is  best  in  the 
youth  of  America,  to  have  this  example  of  unswerv 
ing  choice  of  the  intellectual  life.  It  is  some 
thing,  shall  we  say?  It  is  a  priceless  thing,  should 
rather  be  said.  The  average  man  of  affairs,  to 
whom  getting  rich  is  the  chief  end  of  man,  and 
poverty  the  unpardonable  sin,  can  see  nothing  but 
the  extreme  of  folly  in  a  life  given  to  literature  for 
the  love  of  the  work  and  not  for  love  of  its  rewards. 
To  those  who  know  the  true  values  of  things  there 
is  an  element  of  heroism,  of  greatness  of  soul,  in 
such  a  life.  America  will  never  be  quite  given 
over  to  the  worship  of  the  Almighty  Dollar,  she 
will  never  be  chained  to  Mammon's  chariot  wheels, 
while  she  has  here  and  there  a  son  who  turns  his 
face  ever  towards  "the  shining,  unveiled  face  of 
truth." 


XVIII. 

FRANCIS   RICHARD   STOCKTON. 

A  MERICAN  humor  has  now  a  world-wide  re- 
f\  pute,  and  is  enjoyed  if  not  appreciated  by  an 
international  audience.  The  goddess  of  fame  has 
been  more  lavish  than  discriminating  in  the  distri 
bution  of  her  favors  to  American  humorists.  It  is 
a  single  type  of  humor  that  has  become  known  to 
American  foreign  readers  as  distinctively  American, 
humor.  —the  type  of  which  Artemus  Ward  and 

Mark  Twain  (in  a  part  of  his  writings)  are  the  best 
representatives.  This  humor  is  broad;  it  deals 
largely  in  exaggeration;  it  produces  gales  of  merri 
ment  by  a  fortunate  jest;  it  lacks  delicacy,  con 
structive  power,  and  literary  form.  Foreign  critics, 
who  are  more  distinguished  for  refined  taste  than 
for  profound  knowledge  of  things  American,  seldom 
speak  with  much  respect  of  American  humor.  It 
may  be  well  adapted,  they  concede,  to  tickle  the 
ears  of  the  groundlings,  but  it  makes  the  judicious 
grieve.  We  who  are  to  the  manner  born  know  the 
weak  spot  in  this  criticism.  We  know  that  America 
has  produced  another  type  of  humor,  and  appreciate 
at  its  true  value  the  courtly  polish  of  Irving,  the 


FRANCIS  RICHARD  STOCKTON,  289 

catholic  and  urbane  manner  of  Lowell,  the  playful, 
half-bantering  earnestness  of  Warner.  To  this 
school  belongs  the  subject  of  this  paper,  and  he 
alone  would  redeem  our  humorists  from  the  charge 
of  coarseness  and  want  of  literary  charm. 


I. 

WHEN  he  first  began  writing  fantastic  tales  for 
children,  the  author  signed  them  "  Frank  R.  Stock 
ton,"  and  that  name  still  holds  its  place 
on  the  titlepages  of  his  books.  His 
proper  Christian  names  are,  however,  Francis 
Richard,  and  he  was  born  in  Philadelphia,  April 
5,  1834.  He  had  a  good  education,  being  gradu 
ated  from  the  Central  high-school  of  his  native  city 
in  1852,  but,  like  many  of  our  successful  American 
authors,  he  did  not  have  a  college  training.  His 
first  choice  of  occupation  was  that  of  engraver  and 
draughtsman,  but  his  bent  was  literary  rather  than 
artistic,  and  he  found  his  way  into  journalism.  It 
would  have  been  rather  remarkable  had  such  not 
been  the  case,  as  a  marked  tendency  towards  litera 
ture  distinguishes  his  family.  A  younger  brother 
was  a  journalist  of  distinction ;  an  elder  half- 
brother  was  an  honored  Methodist  clergyman  and 
author;  and  a  sister,  though  she  has  been  somewhat 
eclipsed  by  his  greater  fame,  is  known  as  a  writer 
of  excellent  stories  for  the  magazines,  and  of  several 
books.  Mr.  Stockton  was  connected  for  brief 

19 


2QO  AMERICAN    WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 

periods  with  various  newspapers  and  periodicals, 
and  on  the  establishment  of  "  St.  Nicholas  "  became 
its  assistant  editor.  There  is  reason  to  believe  that 
his  editorial  work  was  of  excellent  character;  but 
both  his  tastes  and  his  gifts  were  rather  for  original 
work,  and  for  nearly  or  quite  twenty  years  now  he 
has  given  himself  to  the  writing  of  stories.  As 
early  as  1870  four  of  his  tales  for  children  were 
issued  in  book  form  by  a  Boston  publisher,  under 
the  title  of  "The  Ting-a  ling  Stories,"  and  there 
after  he  was  known  to  the  initiated  as  "a  promising 
writer." 

Mr.  Stockton  first  gained  the  ear  of  the  great 
public  in  1879,  when  a  series  of  papers  with  a 
Rudder  slight  thread  of  story  appeared  serially  in 

Grange.  "  Scribner's   Monthly,"    and    later    in    a 

volume,  under  the  title  of  "  Rudder  Grange. "  The 
story  of  the  young  couple  keeping  house  in  a  canal- 
boat  and  taking  a  boarder  was  irresistibly  funny, 
and  the  details  were  worked  out  with  great  skill. 
Euphemia  and  Pomona  became  household  words  at 
once;  their  droll  sayings  and  droller  doings  gave 
many  a  pleasant  hour  of  reminiscence,  long  after 
the  enjoyment  of  the  first  reading  had  been  experi 
enced.  The  supreme  test  of  the  quality  of  humor 
is  its  capacity  to  yield  continuous  pleasure.  There 
are  things  that  make  one  laugh  consumedly  at  first 
hearing,  as  if  their  author 

"  Had  meant  to  put  his  whole  wit  in  a  jest, 
And  resolved  to  live  a  fool  the  rest 
Of  his  dull  life." 


FRANCIS  RICHARD  STOCKTON.  2QI 

But  jests  of  this  sort  never  seem  so  funny,  after 
the  first  surprise  has  been  felt.  The  best  humor, 
like  good  wine,  improves  with  age,  and  with  each 
subsequent  reading  enjoyment  grows.  "  Rudder 
Grange"  bears  this  test;  it  is  as  fresh  and  charm 
ing  now  as  when  it  was  first  written,  and  a  new 
reading  after  it  has  been  half  forgotten  will  be  even 
more  relishful  than  the  first. 

Not  even  this  book,  well  deserved  as  was  its 
success,  gave  Mr.  Stockton  so  wide  a  fame  as  one 
of  his  short  stories,  "The  Lady  or  the  Ladyorthe 
Tiger?"  The  artful  way  in  which  he  Tlger? 
led  his  readers  up  to  the  crucial  problem  and  then 
betrayed  their  confidence  by  refusing  to  solve  it, 
cloaking  this  refusal  under  a  pretext  of  inability  to 
decide  the  question  he  had  raised,  was  a  stroke  of 
humor  that  showed  genius.  It  also  showed  com 
mercial  shrewdness,  and  had  its  reward.  Curiosity 
was  piqued,  discussion  was  provoked,  and  debate  on 
the  merits  of  the  question  became  quite  a  social 
"fad."  When  one  thinks  on  what  a  slender  basis 
literary  fame  is  sometimes  built,  how  fortuitous  the 
gaining  of  it  generally  is,  how  frequently  the  public 
admires  an  author  for  that  which  is  not  best  and 
most  characteristic  in  his  work,  the  stir  that  fol 
lowed  the  publication  of  this  story  becomes  more 
humorous  than  anything  in  the  story  itself.  Since 
that  time  there  has  been  not  only  a  ready  market, 
but  an  eager  public,  for  whatever  Mr.  Stockton 
might  write.  He  has  not  been  tempted,  however, 


2Q2  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

to  over-production.  He  has  never  shaken  from  the 
tree  the  unripe  fruits  of  his  imagination  merely 
because  they  would  sell,  but  has  left  them  to  grow 
and  ripen  and  mellow. 


II. 

As   no  reader  will    have   failed    to    infer,    Mr. 

Stockton   is   first   of   all    a   clever  writer  of  short 

stories.       Collections    of    his    magazine 

Short  stories.  . 

stories  have  been  made  at  various  times 
since  1884:  "The  Lady  or  the  Tiger?"  "The 
Christmas  Wreck,"  "The  Bee  Man  of  Orn,"  "Amos 
Kilbright,"  "The  Clocks  of  Rondaine,"  and  "The 
Watchmaker's  Wife,"  —  each  volume  containing, 
besides  the  title  story,  several  other  tales.  These 
volumes  show  Mr.  Stockton's  peculiar  powers  at  their 
best,  and  they  give  him  an  unquestioned  place  in 
the  front  rank  of  American  story-writers.  It  is 
true  that  these  tales  of  his  violate  certain  conven 
tions  of  literary  art.  They  seldom  have  a  plot; 
they  frequently  have  no  dialogue,  consisting  wholly 
or  mainly  of  narrative  or  monologue;  there  is  not 
much  description,  and  no  apparent  attempt  at  effect. 
One  would  say  that  stories  constructed  on  such  a 
plan  could  hardly  fail  to  be  tedious,  however  brief, 
since  they  lack  so  many  of  the  things  that  other 
story-tellers  rely  upon  for  effects.  Mr.  Stockton's 
method  is  vindicated  by  its  success,  not  by  its  a 
priori  reasonableness.  There  is  such  a  thing,  no 


FRANCIS  RICHARD  STOCKTON.  293 

doubt,  as  "  good  form  "  in  every  performance  that 
demands  skill ;  but,  after  all,  the  main  point  is  to  do 
the  thing.  David's  smooth  stones  from  the  brook 
seemed  a  very  ineffective  weapon  with  which  to 
encounter  a  giant,  and  every  military  authority  of 
the  age  would  have  pronounced  his  attempt  hope 
less;  but  Goliath  found,  to  his  cost,  that  the  shep 
herd's  sling  was  mightier  than  the  warrior's  sword 
and  spear.  The  Western  oarsmen  who  His  method 

vindicated  by 

rowed  by  the  light  of  nature,  and  never-  success. 
theless  beat  crews  trained  to  row  scientifically, 
explained  that  theirs  was  called  the  "git  thar" 
stroke.  Mr.  Stockton's  method  of  story-telling 
may  be  similarly  defined;  it  succeeds  with  him, 
but  in  another's  hands  it  would  very  likely  be 
a  failure. 

It  must  not  be  inferred  that  these  stories  lack 
literary  merit.  The  contrary  is  the  fact,  as  a 
critical  study  of  them  discloses.  Take  LUerary 
one  of  the  purely  narrative  stories,  for  ments' 
example,  like  "A  Tale  of  Negative  Gravity."  It 
is  told  with  so  much  of  positive  gravity,  in  so 
matter-of-fact  a  style,  that  one  almost  swallows  it 
whole,  —  almost,  but  not  quite.  Now  let  one 
analyze  that  story,  try  to  imitate  its  simple  style, 
and  however  practised  he  may  be  in  the  art  of 
expression  he  will  finish  his  experiment  with  a  new 
respect  for  the  author's  purely  literary  gifts.  From 
one  point  of  view  Mr.  Stockton  may  almost  be  said 
to  have  no  style.  There  is  nothing,  one  means,  in 


294  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

the  mere  turn  of  his  sentences,  in  his  method  of 
expression,  that  can  be  seized  upon  as  character 
istic,  and  laid  away  in  memory  as  a  sort  of  trade 
mark  by  which  the  author's  other  work  may  be 
tested,  judged,  and  identified.  It  is  very  plain, 
simple,  flowing  English,  this  style  of  Stockton's, 
the  sort  of  writing  that  appears  to  the  inexperienced 
the  easiest  thing  in  the  world  to  do  —  until  they 
have  tried.  The  art  that  conceals  art,  until  it  can 
pass  for  nature  itself,  —  that,  we  are  continually 
told,  is  the  highest  type,  and  the  secret  of  that  Mr. 
Stockton  has  somehow  caught. 

These  tales  stamp  their  author  as  one  of  the  most 

original  of  American   writers.      Though  his  style 

lacks  mannerism  or  distinctive  flavor,  it 

Originality. 

is  not  so  with  the  substance  of  his  work. 
That  has  plenty  of  flavor,  flavor  of  a  kind  so  pecu 
liar  that  his  work  could  never  by  any  accident  be 
mistaken  for  that  of  any  other  writer.  It  might  be 
not  the  easiest  of  tasks  to  tell  whether  an  anony 
mous  essay  or  story  should  be  fathered  upon  Mr. 
Howells  or  Mr.  Aldrich;  but  it  requires  no  such 
nicety  of  literary  taste  to  recognize  a  story  of  Mr. 
Stockton's.  One  who  has  sufficient  accuracy  of 
taste  to  distinguish  between  a  slice  of  roast  beef 
and  a  raw  potato,  so  to  speak,  will  know  the  savor 
of  his  work  wherever  it  is  met.  Other  writers  may 
be  as  original,  in  the  strict  sense  of  that  term,  but 
few,  if  any,  are  so  individual,  so  unmistakably 
themselves  and  nobody  else. 


FRANCIS  RICHARD  STOCKTON.  2$$ 


III. 

MOST  writers  of  short  stories  sooner  or  later 
are  tempted  to  try  their  wings  in  the  longer 
flight  of  a  novel.  It  seems  to  be  just  Veryiike 
about  an  even  chance  whether  they  sue  failures- 
ceed  or  fail,  so  different  are  the  conditions  of  the 
two  classes  of  fiction.  One  dislikes  to  use  the 
word  failure  in  connection  with  any  of  Mr.  Stock 
ton's  work,  yet  "The  Late  Mrs.  Null"  and  "The 
Hundredth  Man  "  fall  very  far  short  of  the  relative 
excellence  of  his  tales.  The  plots  are  very  in 
genious,  the  mystery  surrounding  Mrs.  Null  until 
the  very  last  being  quite  worthy  of  Wilkie  Collins; 
the  dialogue  is  bright  and  amusing;  considerable 
power  of  characterization  is  shown  in  these  novels, 
a  thing  almost  wholly  absent  from  the  tales.  Yet 
withal  there  is  a  lack  of  power,  and  while  the  books 
are  clever  tours  de  force  they  are  not  work  of  lasting 
worth. 

Why  this  should  be  is  something  of  a  puzzle, 
since  writers  of  far  less  originality  and  force  than 
Mr.  Stockton  have  produced  bettennovels. 

...  ..  A  puzzle. 

The  ingenious  reader  may  easily  propose 
to  himself  several  explanations,  of  which  the  follow 
ing  may  be  the  most  satisfactory,  since  it  seems  to 
fit  all  the  facts  known  to  the  public.  Mr.  Stock 
ton's  peculiar  power  is  best  described  by  the  word 
"droll."  He  excels  in  that  juxtaposition  of  incon- 


2  96  AMERICAN   WRITERS   OF   TO-DAY. 

gruities  that  is  the  essence  of  humor.  Only,  in  his 
case,  the  incongruity  is  commonly  not  of  ideas  but 
of  acts  and  situations;  the  incongruity  of  ideas  is 
not  put  into  words,  as  is  the  wont  of  most  humorists, 
but  suggested  to  the  reader,  suggested  often  with 
great  delicacy  and  subtlety.  The  production  of 
this  effect  on  the  mind  of  the  reader  is  one  that 
cannot  be  prolonged  beyond  a  certain  point  without 
wearying  him.  A  joke  that  a  friend  takes  fifteen 
minutes  to  tell  us  is  not  likely  to  have  a  very  sharp 
point  when  the  end  finally  comes,  and  a  writer  who 
spins  out  his  drollery  to  three  hundred  pages  will 
find  it  becoming  a  weariness  to  the  flesh.  The 
very  thing  that  constitutes  Mr.  Stockton's  power 
in  a  story  that  can  be  read  in  a  half-hour  constitutes 
his  weakness  in  a  novel. 

There  is  one  other  excellence  in  his  novels  for 

which  Mr.  Stockton  has  not  yet  been  given  credit. 

He  has  succeeded,   at    least    in    his    Mrs.  Null,   in 

giving  his  story  plenty  of  "local  color." 

His  local  color.     &  J    r  J 

He  was  at  one  time  a  resident  of  Virginia, 
and  the  negro  dialect  and  character  have  seldom 
been  represented  with  a  more  sympathetic  accuracy 
than  by  him.  He  may  not  have  penetrated  so 
deeply  into  the  very  heart  of  the  negro  as  Mr.  Page 
in  his  "Marse  Chan"  and  other  companion  stories, 
but  he  has  made  himself  not  a  bad  second  to  the 
acknowledged  first  in  this  field. 

As  might,    perhaps,    be   expected,   Mr.   Stockton 
has  succeeded  better   in   novelettes.      Here  he  is 


FRANCIS  RICHARD  STOCKTON.  297 

almost  as  much  at  home  as  in  the  brief  tale.  "  The 
Casting  Away  of  Mrs.  Leeks  and  Mrs.  Aleshine " 
and  its  sequel,  "The  Dusantes,"  reach 

.  Novelettes 

pretty  nearly,  if  not  quite,  the  high- 
water  mark  of  our  author.  The  first  named  of  these 
stories  is  one  of  the  best  illustrations  possible  of 
his  peculiar  gift.  The  motive  of  the  tale  is  the 
simplest  possible :  it  is  to  show  how  two  good  New 
England  women,  bred  in  a  narrow  round  of  duties, 
and  wonted  to  a  certain  moral  and  social  standard 
of  action  until  it  had  become  second  nature,  would 
continue  to  act  after  their  kind  in  whatever  unaccus 
tomed  and  startling  circumstances  they  might  be 
placed.  The  humor  of  the  story  consists  almost 
wholly  in  the  incongruity  between  the  incidents  of  a 
shipwreck,  involving  a  stay  on  a  desert  island,  and  the 
ingrained  notions  and  habits  of  these  women.  This 
theme  is  treated  with  so  much  ingenuity,  and  with 
a  touch  so  deft  as  to  make  of  the  story  one  of  the 
most  humorous  things  in  literature.  A  little  knowl 
edge  of  New  England  village  life  is  necessary  to 
its  fullest  appreciation,  but  the  reader  is  to  be 
pitied  whose  imagination  is  not  tickled  by  many  of 
the  scenes  and  incidents  of  this  adventure. 

One  notes,  in  reading  this  story,  what  he  cannot 
have  failed  to  observe  elsewhere,  that  the  author 
has  caught  the  trick  of  lifelike  narration.  The 
tale,  in  its  sober,  matter-of-fact  style  and  its  veri 
similitude,  might  have  been  the  work  of  Defoe  or 
Hale.  Neither  of  these  writers  is  destitute  of 


2Q8  AMERICAN   WRITERS    OF   TO-DAY. 

humor,  especially  Dr.  Hale,  but  neither  of  them 
could  have  supplied  the  element  in  Stockton's 
stories  that  is  their  chief  charm.  The  three  are 
alike  only  in  their  faculty  of  telling  a  story  so  as 
to  give  it,  while  one  is  reading  at  least,  all  the 
semblance  of  the  truth  itself. 


IV. 

THE  young  folks  know  a  good  story-teller  by 
instinct,  and  Mr.  Stockton  has  from  the  first  been 
HIS  "hive-  a  prime  favorite  with  them.  As  we  have 
mles>'  seen,  his  first  book  was  composed  of 
stories  for  children,  and  he  has  gone  on  writing  for 
his  youthful  readers  until  his  "juveniles"  make 
quite  a  row,  seven  or  more  volumes.  The  best  of 
these  stories  show  a  gift  very  similar  to  that  which 
wins  the  favor  of  older  readers,  though  it  is  rather 
a  fantastic  imagination  than  pure  humor  that  in 
spires  the  best  of  them.  Children,  as  a  rule,  have 
a  quite  rudimentary  sense  of  humor,  yet  they  are 
not  incapable  of  appreciating  droll  things.  They 
perceive  most  easily,  however,  that  sort  of  humor 
which  builders  embody  in  gargoyles  and  other  simi 
lar  ornamentations,  —grotesque  distortions  of  types 
with  which  they  are  familiar  in  every-day  life. 
Some  of  Mr.  Stockton's  fairy  tales  show  a  fertility 
of  imagination  that  surpasses  anything  he  has  done 
in  his  other  writings,  and  their  whimsical  absurdi 
ties  are  so  gravely  set  forth  that  many  a  staid  father 


FRANCIS  RICHARD  STOCKTON.  299 

while  reading  them  to  his  children  has  been  half 
inclined  to  accept  them  as  veritable  histories.  It 
is  noteworthy  that  in  these  stories  the  narrow 
line  separating  the  fanciful  from  the  burlesque  is 
never  crossed.  Nobody  could  suspect  from  the 
writer's  manner  that  he  does  not  himself  firmly 
believe  in  the  reality  of  his  marvellous  creations. 
A  false  note  here  would  be  fatal,  and  none  would 
be  quicker  to  detect  it  than  the  readers  of  "St. 
Nicholas,"  where  most  of  these  tales  have  first 
appeared. 

One  of  these  books  is  of  a  more  conventional 
sort,  "A  Jolly  Fellowship."  It  is  a  very  good 
story,  only  —  and  this  is  the  worst  one  could  say 
of  it  —  a  dozen  other  men  might  have  written  it 
as  well  as  Mr.  Stockton.  It  so  completely  lacks 
his  distinctive  qualities  that,  despite  its  general 
brightness,  it  must  be  ranked  among  his  few  fail 
ures  ;  or,  if  that  seem  too  harsh  a  word,  his  partial 
successes. 

Mr.  Stockton  gives  no  signs  of  having  exhausted 
his  vein.  He  has  made  for  himself  a  place  unique 
and  unapproachable  in  the  regard  of  those  who  love 
good  literature.  Original  to  the  verge  of  eccen 
tricity,  he  provokes  no  comparisons  with  any  writer. 
Nobody  has  ever  thought  of  calling  him  "The 
American  somebody  or  other," — a  title  bestowed 
on  his  fellow  craftsmen,  doubtless  with  an  intent 
to  compliment,  though  it  is  really  the  direst  insult 


300  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

that  can  be  offered  to  a  man  of  letters,  since  it 
accuses  him  of  being  the  weak  echo  of  some  Euro 
pean  celebrity.  No,  the  author  of  "  Rudder  Grange  " 
is  not  "  The  American  Lamb "  nor  the  American 
anybody  else,  he  is  just  Frank  R.  Stockton. 


XIX. 
JOAQUIN  MILLER. 

OF  a  poet,  as  well  as  of  a  prophet,  it  is  some 
times  true  that  he  is  not  without  honor  save 
in  his  own  country  and  among  his  own  people. 
Something  very  like  this  might  once  have  been  said, 
perhaps  might  be  said  even  now,  of  Joaquin  Miller. 
There  have  been  American  men  of  letters  before  our 
day,  and  there  are  others  in  our  day,  whom  our  kin 
across  the  sea  rate  higher  than  we  are  accustomed 
,to  rate  them  in  America.  In  no  other  case  easily  re 
called  has  an  American  author's  fame  in  his  own  land 
been  little  more  than  the  pale  reflection  Hisvogue5n 
of  his  transatlantic  glory.  Twenty  years  Ensland- 
ago  Joaquin  Miller  was  the  lion  of  British  society ; 
he  was  feted  and  caressed  by  the  rich  and  titled ;  he 
was  praised  by  the  chorus  of  irresponsible,  indolent 
reviewers;  his  books  ran  through  numerous  editions 
in  two  continents,  —  surely  this  was  fame.  The  last 
mark  of  condescending  admiration  was  bestowed 
upon  him  by  his  English  admirers  when  one  called 
him  "The  American  Byron."  The  epithet  was  not 
wholly  undeserved,  for  there  were  in  his  writings,  as 


302  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

Landor  said  of  Byron,  "  things  as  strong  as  poison  and 
as  original  as  sin."  The  British  public  has,  of  course, 
long  since  recovered  from  its  Miller  "craze;"  the 
critics  no  longer  say  that  he  is  the  most  original 
and  probably  the  greatest  of  our  American  poets; 
and  there  are  few  living  authors  who  are  now  more 
utterly  forgotten.  Not  long  ago  one  who  had  occa 
sion  to  purchase  his  collected  poems,  searched  New 
York  high  and  low,  but  not  a  copy,  new  or  second 
hand,  could  he  find  on  sale.  Of  what  other  American 
poet,  living  or  dead,  could  this  be  true?  The  sober 
critic  hardly  knows  which  phenomenon  is  the  more 
surprising  and  inexplicable,  the  suddenness  of  Mr. 
Miller's  undeserved  fame,  or  the  completeness  of  his 
equally  undeserved  oblivion. 


ClNClNNATUS  HiNER  MILLER  — oris  it  Heine,  as 
sometimes  written  ?  the  authorities  differ  —  was  born 
in  the  Wabash  district  of  Indiana,  November  10,  1841. 
His  parents  moved  to  Oregon  in  1854,  and  he  was 
brought  up  amid  the  rough,  wild  pioneer  life  of  the 
new  territory, — surroundings  well  fitted  to  nourish 
a  poetic  imagination,  but  affording  few  opportunities 
of  culture.  His  education  was  picked  up  anyhow  or 
nohow,  —  mostly  the  latter,  one  fancies,  for 
schools  and  books  were  scarce  in  Oregon 
in  those  days.  Long  before  he  reached  manhood 
young  Miller  seems  to  have  been  thrown  on  his  own 


JOAQUIN  MILLER.  303 

resources,  and  to  have  made  trial  of  more  than  one 
means  of  livelihood.  He  had  the  inevitable  experi 
ence  in  mining,  and  succeeded  in  it  no  better  than 
Bret  Harte;  he  studied  law  for  a  time;  he  was  an 
express  messenger  in  Idaho,  —  which  meant  rough 
work,  small  pay,  and  the  daily  risk  of  life,  in  those 
days ;  he  was  editor  of  a  paper.  This  was  "  seeing 
life "  on  a  pretty  generous  scale  and  in  a  less  harm 
ful  way  than  is  affected  by  the  more  or  less  gilded 
youth  of  our  cities. 

The  journalistic  experience  to  which  allusion  has 
been  made  was  very  brief.  Mr.  Miller  became  editor 
of  the  "  Democratic  Register,"  of  Eugene,  Oregon,  in 
1863,  but  the  paper  was  soon  after  suppressed  by 
military  authority,  the  editor  having  been  guilty  of 
what  were  deemed  disloyal  utterances.  From  what 
can  be  learned,  the  paper  seems  to  have  been  a 
"  copperhead  "  sheet,  following  the  lead  of  such  men 
as  Vallandigham,  and  it  doubtless  de 
served  its  fate.  When  we  recall,  however, 
that  the  editor  was  but  twenty-two  years  of  age,  and 
that  this  was  his  first  venture  in  politics,  —  his  last,  too, 
it  would  seem,  —  we  shall  not  pass  a  harsh  sentence 
of  condemnation  on  him.  After  this  conspicuous 
failure,  Mr.  Miller  won  something  very  like  success. 
He  opened  a  law  office  in  Canon  City,  and  soon 
gained  a  fair  practice.  It  was  here  that  one  of  the 
most  exciting  adventures  of  his  career  befell  him. 
According  to  the  story,  Canon  City  was  invested 
by  hostile  Indians,  and  Miller  led  an  expedition 


304  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

against  them  into  their  own  country;  but  after  a 
long  and  bloody  campaign,  he  was  finally  beaten 
back,  leaving  his  dead  on  the  field.  As  this  episode 
is  related  by  the  veracious  G.  Washington  Moon, 
Hon.  F.  R.  S.  L.,  one  cannot  doubt  its  literal  accu 
racy.  Not  long  after,  the  young  lawyer  and  Indian- 
fighter  was  made  judge  of  the  Grant  County  court, 
Lawyer  and  which  office  he  held  from  1866  to  1870. 
judge.  Had  he  continued  in  the  way  he  thus 

began,  he  might  have  carved  out  for  himself  a 
notable  career  as  jurist  and  public  servant.  Men 
of  far  less  native  endowment  and  force  of  character 
have  been  governors  and  senators  from  the  new 
States  of  the  West.  But  his  weird  was  upon  him, 
as  the  Scotch  say;  he  was  doomed  to  the  pains  and 
penalties,  as  well  as  born  to  the  joys,  of  authorship. 


II. 

MR.  MILLER  began  to  write  in  boyhood,  ignorant 
of  the  rules  of  versification  and  even  of  English 
grammar.  He  wrote  because  he  was  irresistibly 
impelled,  and  with  the  least  possible  encouragement 
from  without;  for,  though  he  first  published  a  col 
lection  of  his  verses  in  paper  covers, 
modestly  calling  them  "  Specimens,"  and 
later  a  volume  with  the  title  "  Joaquin  et  al.,"  it  does 
not  appear  that  he  gained  more  than  a  local  fame  as 
a  poet,  and  not  too  much  even  of  that.  It  was  hardly 
to  be  expected  that  poetry  would  find  a  ready  market 


JOAQUIN  MILLER.  305 

in  a  new  country  where  every  energy  was  absorbed 
in  the  struggle  to  wring  from  nature  a  mere 
subsistence. 

For  many  years  he  diligently  availed  himself  of  such 
means  of  culture  as  came  within  his  reach,  reading 
with  equal  pleasure  and  profit  authors  ancient  and 
modern  as  they  came  to  hand  (the  former  necessarily 
in  translations),  and  practising  his  art  in  secret.  He 
cherished  the  conviction  that  he  was  born  to  be  a 
poet,  and  could  he  but  break  his  birth's  invidious  bar 
and  grasp  the  skirts  of  happy  chance,  fame  and  for 
tune  would  be  his.  It  was  his  desire  to  visit  England, 
where,  for  some  reason,  he  believed  that  he  would 
meet  with  more  encouragement  than  at  visits 
home.  The  event  justified  his  prescience.  Ensland- 
In  1870  he  realized  his  long-cherished  desire,  and 
the  following  year  saw  the  publication  in  London 
of  his  "  Songs  of  the  Sierras."  The  same  year  the 
book  also  appeared  in  Boston,  with  the  imprint  of 
Roberts  Brothers.  The  name  Joaquin,  Songsofthe 
which  appeared  on  the  titlepage,  and  by  sierras< 
which  only  the  poet  was  known  for  some  years,  was 
a  reminiscence  of  his  legal  experience.  It  had  once 
fallen  to  his  lot  to  defend  a  Mexican  brigand  named 
Joaquin  Murietta,  and  he  substituted  his  client's 
Christian  name  for  his  own,  in  the  belief,  doubtless, 
that  it  better  suited  the  character  of  his  verse. 

It  was  the  publication  of  this  volume  that  caused 
the  furore  in  England  that  has  already  been  de 
scribed.  This  was  really  one  of  the  great  literary 


306  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 

successes  of  our  generation,  so  far  as  immediate  and 
wide  popularity  and  social  honors  measure  success, 
To  be  sure,  it  was  founded  on  British  insularity  and 
British  ignorance.  The  English  critic,  and  to 

ignorance.  gome     degree    ^Q     English     public     also,     IS 

always  on  the  watch  for  something  original  in  Ameri 
can  literature,  something  distinctively  national,  some 
thing  racy  of  the  soil.  He  has  an  ingrained  conviction 
that  our  literature  is,  for  the  most  part,  a  weak  echo 
of  his  country's,  and  that  few  of  our  authors  are  truly 
American.  But  he  fails  to  distinguish  between  what 
is  original  and  what  is  merely  bizarre,  and  individual 
affectation  frequently  imposes  itself  on  him  as  the 
true  flavor  of  American  life. 

The  British  admiration  of  Joaquin  Miller  was,  there 
fore,  based  on  an  entirely  erroneous  idea  of  the 
literary  significance  of  his  writings.  Except  in  his 
themes,  few  of  our  American  poets  have  been  less 
The"Ameri-  American.  His  stories, — for  most  of  his 
can  Byron."  poems  are  rhymed  and  versified  tales  of 
adventure,  —  as  to  their  details,  have  the  true  wild 
Western  savor,  but  in  all  other  respects  his  work  is 
purely  British.  It  has  already  been  intimated  that 
the  British  critic  did  well  to  describe  him  as  "  The 
American  Byron."  That  form  of  description,  as  has 
been  remarked  heretofore,  is  generally  an  insult  that 
vainly  tries  to  disguise  itself  as  a  compliment.  In 
this  case  the  phrase  escapes  being  insulting  by  being 
accurately  descriptive.  Joaquin  Miller  is  the  Ameri 
can  Byron  — just  that,  and  only  that  —  in  his  "  Songs 


JOAQUIN  MILLER.  307 

of  the  Sierras."  His  heroes  are  Byron's  characters 
masquerading  in  California  costumes;  Walker  is  a 
Lara  in  sombrero  and  scrape,  and  Kit  Carson  is 
Don  Juan  in  the  garb  of  scout  and  Indian  fighter. 
Byron's  influence  can  be  traced  in  every  poem  and 
almost  in  every  line.  One  is  not,  perhaps,  justified  in 
saying  that  Joaquin  Miller  would  never  have  written 
these  songs  if  he  had  not  soaked  his  mind  in  Byron, 
but  he  would  certainly  have  written  them  far  differ 
ently  in  that  case. 


III. 

ONE  thing  should  have  saved  the  British  critic  from 
this  mistake  of  his,  —  the  lack  of  artistic  merit  in  this 
first  book  of  Mr.  Miller's.  Whatever  merits  it  may 
be  allowed  to  contain,  the  merit  of  good  workmanship 
is  certainly  absent.  The  instructed  reader  should 
have  perceived  at  once  that  if  here  was  a  poet  born, 
here  was  not  a  poet  made.  The  critic  might  have 
perceived  also,  what  is  certainly  there,  —  evidence 
that  this  was  a  poet  who  had  an  innate  faculty  of  ex 
pression,  that  might  be  improved  by  practice  and 
polished  by  the  learning  and  following  of  rules,  but 
not  without  attractiveness  in  its  natural  wildness. 

What  is  bad  in  this  book  is  bad  without  disguise, 
so  fatuously  bad  that  one  never  ceases  wondering  how 
an  author  capable  of  such  stuff  could  ever 

Extremes  meet. 

do  anything  good.     Yet  the  good,  in  turn, 

is  so  strong  and  so  beautiful  as  to  make  the  reader 


308  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF   TO-DAY. 

temporarily  insensible  to  irregularities  and  inequalities 
of  style,  as  well  as  to  gross  defects  of  taste.  That  this 
is  no  exaggeration  let  the  following  lines  testify :  — 

"  I  lay  in  my  hammock  :  the  air  was  heavy 
And  hot  and  threatening ;  the  very  heaven 
Was  holding  its  breath ;  the  bees  in  a  bevy 
Hid  under  my  thatch ;  and  birds  were  driven 
In  clouds  to  the  rocks  in  a  hurried  whirr 
As  I  peer'd  down  by  the  path  for  her. 
She  stood  like  a  bronze  bent  over  the  river, 
The  proud  eyes  fix'd,  the  passion  unspoken  — 
When  the  heavens  broke  like  a  great  dyke  broken. 
Then,  ere  I  fairly  had  time  to  give  her 
A  shout  of  warning,  a  rushing  of  wind 
And  the  rolling  of  clouds  and  a  deafening  din 
And  a  darkness  that  had  been  black  to  the  blind 
Came  down,  as  I  shouted,  '  Come  in  !  come  in  ! 
Come  under  the  roof,  come  up  from  the  river, 
As  up  from  a  grave  —  come  now,  or  come  never  !  '• 
The  tassel'd  tops  of  the  pines  were  as  weeds, 
The  red-woods  rock'd  like  to  lake-side  reeds, 
And  the  world  seem'd  darken'd  and  drown'd  for  ever." 

That  is  almost  incomparably  good,  —  not  quite  per 
fect  in  workmanship,  but  so  full  of  passion  and  fire  as 
to  atone  for  any  defects  in  form.  When  one  reads 
that,  and  some  other  things  in  this  volume,  one  can 
almost  pardon  the  British  critic  who  wrote,  fresh  from 
the  reading  of  it:  "  Of  all  American  poetry  in  recent 
years,  that  of  Mr.  Joaquin  Miller  is  the  freshest.  He 
A  British  '1S  a  new  Poe^  m  ^e  proper  sense  of  the 
term.  He  owes  allegiance  to  no  transat 
lantic  masters,  and  he  is  no  servile  imitator  of  the 
modern  minstrelsy  of  our  own  country.  In  outward 


JOAQUIN  MILLER.  309 

form  —  in  the  mechanism  of  his  poetry  —  he  of  course 
follows  the  fashion  of  the  times ;  but  the  spirit  is  new, 
the  tone  is  individual  and  distinct.     In  his  poems  for 
the  first  time  the  prairies,  the  Sierras,  and  the  new 
and  old  life  of  the  Far  West  of  America,  have  been 
fairly  poetized,  so  to  speak."    One  can  almost  pardon 
this,  but  not  quite ;   for  it  is  the  duty  of  the  critic  not 
to  let  himself  be  carried  off  his  feet  by  his  emotions, 
and  to  maintain  his  coolness  of  judgment  when  his 
admiration  is   most  stirred.     The    trouble   with   this 
critic  was  that  he  admired  not  wisely  but  too  well, 
and  that,  approaching  his  author  with  a  preconceived 
theory  of  American  poetry,  he  misjudged  the  facts 
before  him.     So  absurd,  however,  did  the  whole  tribe 
of  British  critics  become,  that  on  the  publication  of 
Mr.    Miller's   second  volume,    "  Songs  of  the    Sun- 
Lands,"  we  find  the  "  Westminster  Review  "  soberly 
exhorting   the  poet  after  this  fashion :    "  Mr.  Miller 
must  be  careful  that  he  does  not  buy  ele-   Moreofthe 
gance  at  too  dear  a  price.     We  ourselves  same  sort' 
prefer  the  roughness  of  the  backwoods  of  America  to 
all   the   drawing-room    conventionalities    of  Europe. 
We  prefer  Mr.  Joaquin  Miller's  native  reed-pipe  to 
any  guitar."     Now  it  is  about  an  even  chance  whether 
Mr.  Miller's  "  native  reed-pipe  "  (a  pretty  phrase,  is 
it  not?)  sends  forth  music  or  discord,  and  this  exhor 
tation  not  to  be  too  fine,  not  to  condescend  too  much 
to  the  polish  of  civilization,  was,  had  the  critic  but 
known  it,  the  worst  advice  he  could  have  given  to  the 
poet,  —  not  to  mention  that  it  was  wholly  wasted,  for 


3IO  AMERICAN  WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY. 

Joaquin  Miller's  besetting  sin  has  never  been  too 
much  regard  for  the  conventional. 

In  truth,  this  second  volume  showed  a  marked  ad 
vance  in  the  poetic  art.  It  showed  that  the  poet  was 
gradually  acquiring  some  knowledge  of  versification, 
though  it  also  warranted  a  prediction  that  he  would 
never  become  complete  master  of  conventional  forms 
of  expression.  There  is,  and  to  the  last  there  will  be 
something  untamed  and  untutored  about  his  verse ;  it 
is  as  lawless  as  the  outlaws  whom  it  so  often  celebrates, 
but,  like  them,  often  unexpectedly  reveals  elemental 
traits  of  strength  and  beauty.  And  yet  this  general 
characterization  of  his  work  is  hardly  fair ;  sweeping 
statements  are  seldom  quite  fair,  until  they  are  so 
qualified  with  exceptions  that  the  original 
text  is  scarcely  discernible.  Here  and 
there  one  finds,  even  in  his  first  volume,  a  choice  bit 
that  could  hardly  be  made  more  perfect  by  the  most 
painstaking  workmanship.  Here  is  an  instance :  — 

"  Life  knows  no  dead  so  beautiful 
As  is  the  white  cold  coffin'd  past  j 
This  I  may  love  nor  be  betray'd : 
The  dead  are  faithful  to  the  last. 
I  am  not  spouseless  —  I  have  wed 
A  memory  —  a  life  that 's  dead." 

One  can  hardly  say  that  in  his  later  volumes  these 
bits  occur  more  frequently,  but  they  do  occur,  —  wit 
ness  these  stanzas,  prefixed  to  "  The  Rhyme  of  the 
Great  River,"  in  "  Songs  of  the  Mexican  Seas " 


MILLER. 


"  Rhyme  on,  rhyme  on  in  reedy  flow, 
O  river,  rhymer  ever  sweet ! 
The  story  of  thy  land  is  meet, 
The  stars  stand  listening  to  know. 

"  Rhyme  on,  O  river  of  the  earth  ! 
Gray  father  of  the  dreadful  seas, 
Rhyme  on !  the  world  upon  its  knees 
Shall  yet  invoke  thy  wealth  and  worth. 

"  Rhyme  on,  the  reed  is  at  thy  mouth, 

0  kingly  minstrel,  mighty  stream ! 
Thy  Crescent  City,  like  a  dream, 

Hangs  in  the  heaven  of  my  South. 

"  Rhyme  on,  rhyme  on  !  these  broken  strings 
Sing  sweetest  in  this  warm  south  wind ; 

1  sit  thy  willow  banks  and  bind 
A  broken  harp  that  fitful  sings." 

As  may  be  inferred  from  even  the  brief  extracts 
given  above,  Mr.  Miller  is  at  his  best  in  his  lyrics. 
His  longer  narrative  poems  are  weak  and  confused  in 
structure,   though  they   often   contain   some   of  his 
strongest  passages.     His  blank,  unrhymed  verse,  the 
severest  test  of  a  poet,  could  not  well  be  of  poorer 
quality;  it  is  verbose,  spasmodic,  bombastic.     Quali 
fication   must    again    be    made    to    these  Thelslesof 
general   statements.     One   of    his    longer  theA™"°°ns- 
poems,  in  his  "Songs  of  the  Sun-Lands,"  "The  Isles 
of  the  Amazons,"  must  be  rated  as,  on  the  whole,  the 
finest  specimen  of  his  work.    Into  it  he  has  put  all  his 
strength,  and,  as  he  seems  temporarily  to  have  for 
gotten  his  affectations  and  mannerisms,  his  lines  glow 


312  AMERICAN   WRITERS  OF  TO-DAY 

with  tropical  passion,  and  thrill  the  reader  with  the 
vividness  and  originality  of  their  imagery  and  their 
spontaneous  vigor  of  expression.  The  lack  of  propor 
tion,  the  sins  against  good  taste,  the  rawness  and 
crudeness  of  sentiment  that  so  repel  the  reader  in 
some  of  his  work,  are  inconspicuous  here.  Extracts 
would  do  no  justice  to  this  noble  poem,  which  must 
be  read  and  admired  as  a  whole. 

In  the  dedication  of  one  of  his  latest  volumes,  Mr. 
Miller  asks,  somewhat  plaintively :  "  And  may  I  not 
ask  in  return,  now  at  the  last,  when  the  shadows  begin 
to  grow  long,  something  of  that  consideration  which, 
thus  far,  has  been  accorded  almost  entirely  by 
strangers?"  If  by  "  consideration"  the  poet  means 
that  fulsome  and  foolish  praise  that  the  English 
chorussed  twenty  years  ago,  his  hope  is  vain.  He 
Lacks  critical  Pr°bably  took  it  seriously  when  the  sapient 
faculty.  London  critics  assured  him  that  he  was  a 

greater,  because  a  more  original,  poet  than  Lowell  or 
Bryant.  We  may  safely  infer  from  his  writings  that 
he  has  little  faculty  of  self-criticism,  —  that  all  his 
work  appears  to  him  of  nearly  equal  worth,  and  that 
he  is  unconscious  of  his  many  and  flagrant  faults. 
This  alone  can  account  for  his  lawless  trampling  on 
the  conventionalities  of  the  poet's  art.  The  fame  that 
he  would  claim  as  his  right  will  never  be  awarded  him 
by  the  readers  of  the  present  day,  whatever  the  readers 
of  the  future  may  say.  But  Mr.  Miller  has,  neverthe 
less,  just  cause  of  complaint  against  his  countrymen. 


JOAQUIN  MILLER.  3 1 3 

There  has  been  a  natural  resentment  of  the  unwise 
puffery  of  the  London  press,  and  in  consequence  the 
poet  has  never  received  his  true  meed  of  praise. 
Certain  personal  eccentricities  have  also  stood  between 
him  and  a  just  appreciation  of  his  work.  There  is  so 
much  that  is  finely  imaginative  in  his  verse,  so  much 
that  is  genuine  in  feeling  and  powerful  in  expression, 
that,  in  spite  of  his  maddening  shortcomings,  the 
perverse  wilfulness  of  his  errors,  he  deserves  and 
should  before  this  have  been  awarded  by  general 
suffrage,  an  honored  place  well  up  on  the  roll  of 
American  poets. 


INDEX. 


INDEX. 


Academy,  French,  awards  prize  to 
Crawford,  156. 

Addison,  papers  on  Milton,  63  ;  humor 
of,  92;  essays,  95. 

ALDRICH,  THOMAS  BAILEY,  collabo 
rates  with  Stedman,  16;  birth  and 
childhood,  104 ;  "  Story  of  a  Bad 
Boy,"  ib. ;  education  cut  short,  105 ; 
business  career,  106 ;  "  Ballad  of 
Baby  Bell,"  ib. ;  devotes  himself  to 
literature,  107  ;  on  staff  of  "  Home 
Journal,"  1 08 ;' friendships,  ib.,  277  ; 
editor  of  "Every  Saturday,"  109; 
"The  Dells,"  no;  editor  of  "The 
Atlantic,"  no  ;  discovery  of  authors, 
in;  other  books,  112;  style,  ib. ; 
longer  stories,  113  ;  treatment  of  the 
labor  question,  114;  verse,  a  carver 
of  cameos,  115;  conscientious  art, 
116;  longer  poems,  118;  dash  of 
cynicism,  ib. ;  "  Mercedes,"  119, 120 ; 
European  reputation,  121;  reserved 
power,  122  ;  jokes  about  Craddock's 
chirography,  172;  humor,  232. 

American,  false  standards  of,  138; 
James  hardly  an,  75,  86;  British 
ignorance  of  things,  121;  queer 
British  ideas  about,  136,  138,  159, 
229 ;  Miss  Murfree  distinctively, 
186;  Cable,  266;  Harte,  229; 
Miller,  how  far,  309. 

"Argonauts  of  '49,"  215  ;  Harte's  lec 
ture  on,  223. 


Arnold,  Benedict,  262. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  sweet  reasonable 
ness,  66;  style,  85. 

Art,  baseness  in,  satiates,  23 ;  neces 
sarily  selective,  52  ;  chief  function 
to  please,  53  ;  no  place  for  vile  or 
trivial  in,  ib. ;  grotesque  in,  53,  298  ; 
Mr.  James's  mechanical,  79 ;  must 
exclude  nothing,  81 ;  morals  in,  82; 
Cable's,  267  ;  of  story  telling  in  verse, 
284 ;  Stoddard's  devotion  to,  287  ; 
which  conceals  art,  294;  Joaquin 
Miller's  lack  of,  307. 

"Atlantic  Monthly,"  Howells  editor 
of,  49;  Aldrich  editor  of,  113;  Crad 
dock's  first  story  in,  171. 

Autobiography,  Howells's,  45;  War 
ner's,  88;  Aldrich's,  104;  Mrs. 
Burnett's,  159;  Kale's,  232. 

Authors,  the  University  of,  43 ;  must 
live,  78;  rewards  of,  169  ;  versatility 
of  American,  230. 


Bacon,  an  essayist,  95. 
Balzac,  u  Comedie  Humaine,"  81. 
Bancroft,  labored  history,  27. 
Beaconsfield,  Lord  (Disraeli),    defini 
tion  of  a  critic,   64 ;    "  Lothair," 

153- 

Beauty,  relation  to  truth,  21. 
Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  233. 
Bellamy,  Edward,  240. 


INDEX. 


Billings,  Josh,  see  Shaw. 

Blackmore,  rhythmical  prose,  20,  21. 

Blavatsky,  Madame,  143. 

Blindness,  Prescott's,  32  ;  Parkman's 
partial,  ib. ;  Milton's,  34. 

Boston,  Hale  born  in,  231;  Henry 
James  tha  idol  of,  69. 

Boswell,  141. 

Boy,  Mark  Twain's  knowledge  of, 
135  ;  Fauntleroy  too  perfect  a,  166. 

Brooks,  Phillips,  233. 

Brown,  John,  Stedman's  ballad  on,  9. 

Browning,  dramatic  effects,  how  pro 
duced,  24;  "  Pippa,"  246. 

Bryant,  British  neglect  of,  138. 

Bunyan,  prefers  second  part  of  "  Pil 
grim's  Progress,"  225. 

BURNETT,  FRANCES  HODGSON, 
English  born,  159;  precocity,  ib. ; 
autobiography,  ib. ;  discovered  by 
"  Scribner's,"  160;  marries  Dr. 
Burnett,  161 ;  "  That  Lass  o' 
Lowrie's,"  ib. ;  later  novels,  162 ; 
realist  by  instinct,  ib. ;  gift  of 
style,  163,  196;  "  Little  Lord 
Fauntleroy,"  164-166;  its  fatal 
defect,  165;  other  books  for  the 
young,  167  ;  dramatic  success,  168  ; 
its  rewards,  169;  ignoring  of  Ten 
nessee,  170. 

Burton,  his  ."  Anatomy  "  quoted,  69. 

Byron,  lines  on  critics,  64 ;  and  Bret 
Harte,  134;  on  Cervantes,  130; 
sudden  fame,  187 ;  "  The  Ameri 
can,"  301. 

CABLE,  GEORGE  WASHINGTON,  rep 
resentative  Southern  writer,  261  ; 
political  heresies,  262 ;  birth,  ib.  ; 
youth,  263;  serves  in  Confederate 
army,  ib. ;  journalism,  264 ;  first 
stories,  ib. ;  devotes  himself  to  liter 
ature,  266;  Creole  life  in  fiction, 
264,  266;  pioneer  in  dialect  writing, 
266  ;  a  great  artist,  267  ;  style,  ib. ; 
first  novels,  268 ;  later  writings, 
269 ;  rare  combination  of  endow 
ments,  270;  unpopularity  in  the 


South,  271 ;  courage,  272  ;  Northern 
residence,  125,  272,  273;  books, 
274. 

California,  Mark  Twain's  life  in,  128  , 
romantic  history,  212;  Argonauts, 
213  ;  Harte's  picture  of  life  in,  217- 
221;  dislike  of  Harte  in,  229;  how 
named,  237. 

Calvin,  invalidism,  284  ;  industry,  ib. 

Carlyle,  prose.  20 ;  confiscations  of, 
85 ;  hatred  of  shams,  132. 

"  Century,"  publishes  Eggleston's 
novels,  254;  "Life  in  the  Thirteen 
Colonies,"  259. 

Cervantes,  130. 

Channing,  27. 

Charm,  necessary  in  poetry,  21 ;  Mrs. 
Burnett's,  163,  196. 

Chautauqua,  Hale's  connection  with, 
242. 

Cicero,  248. 

Collins,  Wilkie,  short  stories,  77; 
plots,  295  ;  style,  163. 

Cosmopolitan,  Howells's  spirit,  48 ; 
Henry  James's  American,  71-75. 

CRADDOCK,  CHARLES  EGBERT, 
(Mary  Noailles  Murfree),  dis 
covered  by  Aldrich,  in  ;  first 
story,  171;  "In  the  Tennessee 
Mountains,"  ib. ;  mystery  of  the 
authorship,  172;  disclosed,  173; 
lineage,  175;  home  at  St.  Louis, 
ib. ;  conscientious  worker,  1 76 ; 
thorough  knowledge,  177;  depth 
of  insight,  ib. ;  short  stories,  1 78 ; 
"Where  the  Battle  was  Fought," 
179;  other  books,  180 ;  plot,  182; 
dialogue,  ib. ;  description,  183,  184  ; 
style,  185  ;  distinctively  American, 
186. 

Crawford,  Thomas,  142. 

CRAWFORD,  FRANCIS  MARION, 
knowledge  of  Italy,  71;  birth,  141; 
not  a  mere  dreamer,  142;  enters 
Harvard,  ib. ;  romantic  career,  143  ; 
journalist,  ib.;  "Mr.  Isaacs,"  143, 
144  ;  astonishingly  prolific,  145  ; 
neither  realist  nor  romancer,  76, 


INDEX. 


319 


146;  theory  of  fiction,  147,  154; 
his  romances,  148;  his  novels,  149; 
two  failures,:  50 ;  the  Saracinesca  trio, 
151-153;  European  reputation,  155  ; 
prize  from  French  Academy,  1 56  ; 
his  future,  ib. 

Creole  in  fiction,  264,  266,  268,  269. 

Critic,  Howells's  quarrel  with,  61 ;  a 
parasite,  62;  rather  a  middleman, 
ib. ;  his  right  to  exist,  63  ;  not  so 
black  as  painted,  64  ;  his  true  func 
tion,  65  ;  Disraeli's  definition  of,  64 ; 
Byron's  lines  on,  ib. 

Criticism,  an  unprofitable  sort  of, 
158 ;  Joaquin  Miller  lacks  self-, 
312. 

Curtis,  George  William,  his  "Easy 
Chair,"  90. 

Cuttle,  Captain,  his  famous  observa 
tion,  52. 

Cynicism,  vein  of  in  Stedman,  13 ; 
incompatible  with  poetry,  25;  Aid- 
rich's  dash  of,  1 1 8. 


Daudet,  Alphonse,  his  "  Le  Petit 
Chose,"  45. 

Davis,  Richard  Harding,  his  Van 
Bibber,  56,  note. 

Decameron,  76. 

Defoe,  verisimilitude,  244,  297. 

De  Quincy,  prose,  20;  essays,  95. 

Description,  Miss  Murfree's,  183. 

Dialect,  Miss  Murfree's,  185;  Mrs. 
Whitney's  New  England,  208  ;  Ca 
ble's,  266;  "craze,"  ib. ;  Stockton's, 
296. 

Dialogue,  place  in  art  of  fiction,  181 ; 
Miss  Murfree's,  182. 

Dickens,  rythmical  prose,  20 ;  "  Christ 
mas  Stories,"  77  ;  and  the  romantic 
school.  100 ;  Pickwick,  91  ;  defi 
cient  in  style,  163 ;  sentimentality, 
228 ;  suspects  George  Eliot's  dis 
guise,  174;  Stoddard's  "  Gadshill," 
285. 

Didacticism,  excluded  from  poetry, 
22 ;  from  fiction,  82 ;  avoided  by 


Miss    Phelps,    194 ;    Hale    teaches 

without,  245.     See  Ethics. 
Dodge,  Miss  ("  Gail  Hamilton  "),  on 

woman  question,  196. 
Drama,  purpose  of,  68 ;  Henry  James's 

successes,   83-85  ;    Mrs.    Burnett's 

contribution  to,  168-170. 
Dumas,  Alexandre  plre,  a  romancer, 

100. 


EGGLESTON,  EDWARD,  youth,  249; 
a  circuit  rider,  ib. ;  journalist,  251  ; 
editor  of  the  "  Independent,"  ib. ; 
pastor,  252;  home,  ib.;  "The 
Hoosier  Schoolmaster,"  253  ;  other 
books,  254  ;  man  greater  than  artist, 
255;  historian,  256;  diligence  in 
research,  257;  biographies,  258; 
historian  of  the  people,  259. 

Eggleston,  George  Gary,  "  American 
War  Ballads  and  Lyrics,"  14. 

Eliot,  George,  and  romantic  school, 
100;  surpassed  by  Miss  Murfree, 
1 73 ;  suspicions  of  Dickens  and 
others  concerning,  174. 

Essays,  James's  critical,  80 ;  popular 
ity  of,  95 ;  famous  writers  of,  ib. ; 
Warner's  natural  method  of  ex 
pression,  96. 

Ethics,  not  excluded  from  poetry, 
22  ;  in  art,  195 ;  Mrs.  Whitney's 
"preachy"  tone,  209;  Hale  always 
a  preacher,  245.  See  Didacticism 
and  Morals. 


Fashion,  mutations  of  literary,  185. 

Fecundity,  literary,  Parkman's,  30 ; 
Howells's,  50;  Crawford's,  145; 
Miss  Murfree's,  180;  Mrs.  Whit 
ney's,  201  ;  Hale's,  244 ;  Calvin's, 
248.  See  Industry. 

Fiction,  Howells's  theory  of,  67 ; 
Crawford's  147,  154;  Warner's  lack 
of  art  in,  101 ;  romantic  school  of, 
100;  indecency  of  French,  154;  its 
quasi- justification,  155;  no  excuse 


320 


INDEX. 


for    indecency    in    American,    ib.  ; 

children    good    judges    of,     298  ; 

Creole  life  in,  264,  266  ;  artistic  and 

moral  wedded  in  Cable's,  270. 
France,  James's  knowledge  of,  71. 
Froude,  a  melancholy  example,  35 ;  on 

literary  wages,  275. 

Genius,  intuitions  of,  20;  Parkman  a 
man  of,  30  ;  not  necessarily  a  fool, 
138  ;  Trollope's  theory  of,  146. 

Gentlemen,  English  and  French,  71, 
72 ;  American,  75. 

George,  Henry,  240. 

Gibbon,  rank  as  historian,  27;  his 
great  work,  30 ;  nobody  to  retell  his 
story,  35 ;  militia  service,  37. 

Gladstone,  a  chopper  of  trees,  39. 

Globe-trotter,  American,  130. 

"  Godey's,"  part  in  literature,  107. 

Greeley,  Horace,  240. 

Grotesque,  its  place  in  art,  53,  298. 

Guiney,  Louise  Imogen,  in. 

Haggard,  Rider,  romances,  80,  100. 

Hale,  Nathan  and  Lucretia  P.,  231. 

HALE,  EDWARD  EVERETT,  versa 
tility,  230;  ancestry,  231 ;  education, 
232 ;  preacher,  ib.,  245  ;  pastor,  234 ; 
his  Philip  Nolan,  234;  verisimili 
tude,  235,  297;  novels,  236;  histo 
rian,  237  ;  superficiality,  238  ;  editor, 
239  ;  philanthropist,  240  ;  Chautau- 
qua  work,  242 ;  power,  244  ;  volum- 
inousness,  244  ;  optimism,  246  ; 
contrasted  with  Tolstoi,  247. 

Hamilton  College,  Warner  graduated 
at,  89. 

Hamilton,  "Single-speech,"  167. 

Hamilton,  Gail,  see  Dodge. 

Hardy,  Arthur  Sherburne,  in. 

"Harper's  Magazine,"  Howells's  con 
tributions  to,  61 ;  Warner's  connec 
tion  with,  90. 

HARTE,  FRANCIS  BRET,  British  ad 
miration  of,  138;  birth  and  boy 
hood,  214;  fails  in  mining,  215 


303;  first  attempt  at  writing,  215  ; 
compositor,  216;  journalist,  217; 
"Condensed  Novels,"  ib ,  153; 
poems,  218;  unpopularity  in  Cali 
fornia,  219;  editor  of  "The  Over 
land  Monthly,"  219;  "The  Luck 
of  Roaring  Camp,"  220;  other  tales 
of  California  life,  134,  221,  268; 
leaves  California,  222 ;  Bohemian- 
ism,  223 ;  goes  abroad,  ib.  ;  narrow 
ness,  224;  alleged  immorality,  226; 
sentimentality,  228  ;  popularity 
abroad,  229. 

Hartford,  famous  authors  of,  124. 

Harvard,  Parkman  graduated  at,  36, 
and  professor  in,  39 :  James  law 
student  at,  70 ;  Aldrich  fails  to 
enter,  105  ;  Crawford  student  at, 
142  ;  Hale  graduated  at,  232  ;  Stod- 
dard's  poem  at,  285. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  Stedman's 
poem  on,  15  ;  "  Twice  Told  Tales," 
77  ;  James's  biography  of,  80  ;  typi 
cal  romancer,  148 ;  psychologic 
rather  than  moral,  270  ;  kindness  to 
Stoddard,  280;  narrowness,  225. 

Heptameron,  76. 

Historian,  the  great,  27;  Parkman  as, 
31-37;  Hale  a  superficial,  238; 
Eggleston  as,  256-260. 

Hobbes,  184. 

Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  effervescing 
wit,  26 ;  one  of  the  Brahmin  caste, 
27 ;  and  Howells,  47 ;  humorist, 
93;  "Elsie  Venner,"  102;  British 
neglect  of,  138;  versatility,  230; 
occasional  poems,  286. 

Homer,  art  of,  116. 

Horticulture,  Parkman's  labors  in,  39. 

HOWELLS,  WILLIAM  DEAN,  natu 
rally  a  prose  writer,  25  ;  not  college 
bred,  43;  descent,  44;  "A  Boy's 
Town,"  45  ;  journalist,  46 ;  "  Poems 
of  Two  Friends,"  ib. ;  biography  of 
Lincoln,  47  ;  consul  at  Venice,  ib. ; 
trip  to  Boston,  ib. ;  books  of  travel, 
48  ;  editor  of  •'  Atlantic,"  49 ;  fe 
cundity,  50 ;  alleged  pessimism,  ib. ; 


INDEX. 


321 


admiration  of  Tolstoi,  51 ;  artist,  ib. ; 
realism,  52 ;  gospel  of  the  trivial, 
54  ;  farce-comedies,  55  ;  travesty  of 
American  womanhood,  56  ;  defence, 
57 ;  not  a  valid  plea,  58  ;"  World  of 
Chance,"  59;  Peace  Hughes,  60; 
critical  writings,  61  ;  theory  of  criti 
cism,  62-66  ;  faithful  to  his  ideals, 
67  ;  knowledge  of  Europe,  70  ;  keen 
observation,  232. 

Hughes,  Peace,  Howells's  finest  female 
character,  59,  60. 

Humor,  American,  55,  136,  288  ; 
Howells's,  55  ;  Warner's,  92  ; 
dangerous  to  an  author,  93,  94; 
exaggeration  an  element  of,  ib. ; 
cheap,  137;  Mark  Twain's,  ib., 
288;  electricity  of  literature,  137; 
Lowell's  urbane,  289 ;  Mrs.  Whit 
ney's  quiet,  208;  Aldrich's,  232; 
test  of,  290  ;  foreign  critics  of,  288  ; 
Stockton's,  290,  295  j  essence  of, 
296. 

Hutchinson,  Ellen  M.,  "Library  of 
American  Literature,"  18. 


Idaho,  303. 

"Independent,"  Miss   Phelps  writes 

for,  195  ;  Eggleston  editor  of,  251. 
Industry,  Parkman's,  32;    Howells's, 

61 ;  Miss  Phelps's,  198;  Eggleston's, 

257.     See  Fecundity. 
Irving,  rank  as  historian,  27  ;   short 

stories,  77;  humor,   92;   Warner's 

study  of,  96. 

Isocrates,  advice  to  Demonicus,  69. 
Italy,  Crawford's  knowledge  of,  71. 


James,  Henry  (senior),  extraordinary 
career,  70. 

JAMES,  HENRY  (junior),  Bayard 
Taylor's  high  praise  of,  69  ;  birth 
and  education,  70 ;  studies  law  at 
Harvard,  ib. ;  knowledge  of  Europe, 
ib. ;  ignorance  of  America,  71 ;  In 
ternational  Novels,  ib.;  "  The 


American,"  72;  "Daisy  Miller," 
73 ;  half  truths,  ib. ;  his  missing 
type,  74-76;  theory  of  the  ngvel, 
76;  short  stories,  77-79;  art  me 
chanical,  79 ;  disciple  of  Balzac,  80 ; 
critical  essays,  ib. ;  theory  of  art,  81, 
82 ;  lacks  courage  of  his  theories, 
82  ;  plays,  83-85  ;  style,  85,  113. 

Janvier,  Thomas  A.,  56. 

Jewett,  Sarah  Orne,  in. 

Johnson,  Samuel,  essays,  95  ;  parody, 
141  ;  foolish  saying,  176. 

Journalism,  demands  of,  6;  Warner's, 
89;  Mark  Twain's,  127,  128;  Craw 
ford's,  143  ;  Harte's,  217,  219  ; 
Horace  Greeley  school  of,  240 ; 
Eggleston's,  251  ;  Cable's,  264 ; 
Stockton's,  289;  Miller's,  303. 

Keats,  prose  version  of,  21  ;  Aldrich 
imbibes  his  spirit,  118;  Stoddard's 
affinity  with,  282. 

Kipling,  Rudyard,  80,  144. 

"  Knickerbocker's,"  Parkman's  articles 
in,  28  ;  and  American  literature,  107. 

Labor  Question,  Aldrich's  treatment 

of,  114. 
Lamb,  Charles,  humor  of,  92 ;  essays, 

95- 

Landor,  prose,  20. 

Lang,  Andrew,  insularity,  122. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  Howells's  biogra 
phy  of,  47;  a  Hoosier  boy,  249; 
Stoddard's  ode  on,  285. 

Literature,  crude  workmanship  of, 
116;  mutations  of  fashion  in,  185  ; 
collaboration  in,  197;  Scott's  dictum 
regarding,  275  ;  curiosities  of,  279 ; 
puzzles  of,  286  ;  fame  in,  291. 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  critic,  17 ; 
luxuriant  style,  26 ;  Brahmin  caste, 
27 ;  Howells  makes  acquaintance  of, 
47  ;  British  neglect  for  a  time,  138  ; 
"  Hosea  Biglow,"  209 ;  versatility, 
230  ;  urbane  humor,  289  ;  "  Com 
memoration  Ode,"  14,  285. 


21 


322 


INDEX. 


Macaulay,  opinion  of  prize  poems,  8  ; 
rank  as  historian,  27 ;  his  history, 
30 ;  robustness,  33 ;  almost  a  novel 
ist,  41 ;  essays,  95 ;  glitter  and  glow 
of,  85. 

Malory,  "  Morte  d' Arthur,"  132,  133. 

Massachusetts,  plain  living  and  high 
thinking  in,  87. 

Matthews,  Brander,  strictures  on  Brit 
ish  insularity,  121,  122. 

"  Mercedes,"  plot  of  Aldrich's  drama, 
119-121. 

Michael  Angelo,  157. 

MILLER,  JOAQUIN  (Cincinnatus 
Hiner),  301 ;  his  vogue  in  England, 
ib. ;  sudden  fame,  302 ;  complete 
oblivion,  ib. ;  birth  and  education, 
ib. ;  journalistic  experience,  303  ; 
practices  law,  ib. ;  first  writings, 
304;  visit  to  England,  305 ;  "Songs 
of  the  Sierras,"  ib.;  British  admira 
tion  of,  138,  301,  306;  lack  of  art, 
307 ;  second  volume  of  verse,  310 ; 
lacks  critical  faculty,  312. 

Miller,  Daisy,  story,  73  ;  drama,  84. 

Milton,  "  Mute  inglorious,"  4,  265  ; 
prose,  20;  on  poetic  expression, 
24;  blindness  and  "  Paradise  Lost," 
34 ;  Addison's  paper  on,  63 ;  his 
spirit  in  Aldrich,  118;  prefers  his 
"Paradise  Regained,"  225. 

Mining,  Mark  Twain's  experience  in, 
127;  Bret  Harte's,  215,  303. 

Mississippi,  Mark  Twain  a  pilot  on, 
127;  his  knowledge  of  the  region, 

134- 

Moliere,  134. 
"  Moral,"  of  the  "  Blameless  Prince," 

'3- 

Morals  in  Art,  22,  53,  82,  226,  228. 
See  Ethics  and  Didacticism. 

Motley,  John  Lothrop,  rank  as  histo 
rian,  27. 

Murfree,  Mary  Noailles,  see  Crad- 
dock. 

Murray,  "  Adirondack,"  233. 

Musset,  Alfredde,  James's  essay  on,8o. 

Mysticism,  Mrs.  Whitney's,  210. 


Nation,"  the,  Howells  a  writer  for, 
48. 

New  England,  Miss  Phelps's  knowl 
edge  of ,  193;  Mrs.  Whitney's,  208 ; 
village  life,  297. 

New  York,  little  impression  on  Aid- 
rich,  109;  Crawford's  ignorance  of, 
150. 

Nolan,    Philip,    not   a   real    person, 

234- 

Novelist,  Parkman  nearly  one,  40 ; 
versus  historian,  41  ;  Macaulay 
shows  gifts  of,  41  ;  Scott  as,  ib. 

Novel,  Howells's  theory  of,  52  ; 
James's  theory  of,  76,  81  ;  James's 
International,  71  ;  the  typical 
French,  83;  Stockton's  failures  in 
writing,  295  ;  Mrs.  Stoddard's  meri 
torious,  279 ;  every  woman  can 
write  one,  99;  defined,  147;  the 
ideal,  153;  the  makings  of  a,  182; 
constructive  power  necessary  to 
writing,  268. 

Ohio,  usurps  Virginia's  function,  87. 
Optimism,  Kale's,  246. 
Originality,  Parkman's,  32  ;  Warner's, 
97  ;  Stockton's,  294. 

PARKMAN,  FRANCIS,  rank  among 
historians,  27 ;  his  family,  28 ;  grad 
uated  at  Harvard,  ib. ;  studies  law, 
ib. ;  in  the  Great  West,  ib.  ;  «  The 
California  and  Oregon  Trail,"  29 ; 
his  histories,  ib. ;  a  "  self-made  man," 
30  ;  abundant  labors,  31,  248  ;  origi 
nality,  32 ;  researches,  33  ;  almost 
blind,  ib. ;  style,  35  ;  a  realist,  36  ; 
picturesqueness,  ib.  ;  praised  by 
"  Saturday  Review,"  ib. ;  recognition 
abroad,  37  ;  a  man  of  the  world,  ib. ; 
his  play,  38  ;  horticultural  pursuits, 
39 ;  "  Book  of  Roses,"  40 ;  pro 
fessor  of  horticulture,  ib. ;  "  Vassall 
Morton,"  ib. ;  death,  42. 

Palmerston,  a  rider  to  hounds,  39. 

Pater,  270. 


INDEX. 


323 


Pessimism,  Howells's  alleged,  50 ; 
incompatible  with  poetry,  25. 

Phelps,  Austin,  188. 

PHELPS,  ELIZABETH  STUART,  sud 
den  fame,  187 ;  a  born  author,  188  ; 
parentage,  ib. ;  short  tales,  193 ; 
message,  194;  philanthropy,  195; 
style,  ib. ;  marries  Mr.  Ward,  197 ; 
industry,  198 ;  "  Swedenborgianism," 
191 ;  knowledge  of  human  nature, 
193 ;  verse,  199. 

Philanthropist,  Dr.  Hale  a,  240-243 ; 
Eggleston,  255. 

Philip  of  Spain,  287. 

Philistine,  Mark  Twain  too  frank  a, 


Piatt,  John  J.,  literary  partnership 
with  Howells,  46. 

Picturesqueness,  Parkman's,  36  ;  era 
of  in  California,  213. 

Play,  its  value,  38 ;  Parkman's,  39 ; 
Gladstone's,  ib. ;  Palmerston's,  ib. 

Plots,  place  of  in  novel,  52;  Miss 
Murfree's,  182  ;  Miss  Phelps's,  193. 

Poe,  short  stories,  77;  narrowness 
225. 

Poet,  a  prophet,  24 ;  Howells  a  pre 
cocious,  45  ;  America's  lack  of  great 
3;  scant  rewards  of,  4,  280. 

Poetry,  Macaulay's  opinion  of  prize 
8 ;   Stedman's  lectures  on,  19 ;  de 
fined,  ib. ;  differentiated  from  prose 
20 ;  how  it  becomes  effective,  21 
beauty  its  chief  element,  20 ;    in 
eludes  ethics,  22;  has  a  religiou 
basis,  23 ;  quality  of  its  expression 
24 ;    pessimism  incompatible  with, 
25  ;  Aldrich's  cameo-like  verse,  1 1 5  ; 
unprofitable      merchandise,       117; 
Miss    Phelps's,   199;    Mrs.   Whit 
ney's,  203-205 ;    characteristics    of 
Stoddard's,  282,  283 ;   British  criti 
cism  of  American,  308 ;  art  of,  310. 
Pope,  "  Essay  on  Man,"  22. 
Poverty,  bracing  qualities  of,  30. 
Precocity,   Howells's,    45;   Mrs.  Bur 
nett's,  159  ;  Bret  Harte's,  215. 
Prescott,  rank  as  historian,  27;  blind- 


ness,  33;  "Conquest  of  Mexico," 
ib. 

'rose,  how  differing  from  poetry,  20, 
21 ;  Lander's,  20;  Milton's,  ib.;  De 
Quincey's,  ib. ;  Carlyle's,  ib. ;  Dick 
ens' s  and  Blackmore's  rhythmical, 
ib. 

'Putnam's"  and  American  authors, 
107. 


Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  237. 

Reade,    Charles,    short    stories,    77; 

style,  163. 
Realism,  Parkman's,   36;  its  canon, 

52;  true  and  false,  53;  Howells's, 

52 ;    James's,   80 ;    Mark    Twain's 

unconscious,   134 ;   Mrs.   Burnett's 

instinctive,  162. 
Realist,  Parkman    a   historical,   36 ; 

Warner  no,  100;  Crawford  not  a, 

146. 
Rhythm,  relation  to  poetry,  19,  20; 

prose,  21. 
Romance,    denned,    147;    schools  in 

fiction,  100 ;    Hawthorne's  typical, 

148. 
Rousseau,  240. 


St.  Botolph's  Club,  Parkman  presi 
dent  of,  38. 

Sainte-Beuve,  James  a  disciple  of,  80. 
"  St.  Nicholas,"  166,  251,  290. 
Sappho,  lyrics,  116. 
;t  Saturday    Review,"   praises    Park 
man,  36. 

Saxe,  John  G.,  a  humorist,  93. 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  romances  in  verse, 
ii  ;  his  novels  and  their  value,  41 ; 
unable  to  write  short  stories,  77; 
a  romancer,  100;  lies  about  Wav- 
erley,  174  ;  gift  as  story  teller,  207 ; 
dictum  on  literature,  275. 
"  Scribner's  Magazine,"  159,  160,  264, 

268,  290. 
Seneca,  276. 
Sentiment,  Harte's  not  true,  228; 


324 


INDEX. 


Dickens's    becomes    sentimentality  ' 
ib. 

Shaw,  Henry  W.  ("Josh  Billings"), 
as  a  humorist,  94. 

Shelley,  reminiscences  of  in  Stedman's  , 
poetry,  9;  influence  on  Stoddard,  : 
283  ;  fame  inferior  to  Southey's,  ! 
286. 

Short  story,  famous  authors  and  the,  ' 
77  ;  requirements  of,  78 ;  excellence 
of  Henry  James's,  79 ;  Mark 
Twain's,  135  ;  Miss  Murfree's, 
178  ;  Miss  Phelps's,  193  ;  how  it 
differs  from  the  novel,  236;  Bret 
Harte's,  268 ;  Stockton's,  292. 

Slavery,  262,  270,  271. 

Smith,  Sydney,  too  funny  by  far,  94.     I 

Smollett,  and  Bret  Harte,  134. 

South,  the,  99,  261,  263,  270,  271,  272, 

273- 

Southey,  286. 

Spoils  system,  fruits  of,  48. 

Stage,   not    so    bad   as    represented, 
169. 

STEDMAN,     EDMUND     CLARENCE, 
mother,  5  ;  early  aptitude  for  litera 
ture,  ib. ;   suspended  from  college, 
ib. ;    tries  journalism,   6 ;    becomes 
stock-broker,  ib. ;   good  fortune,  7  ; 
unconscious    imitation,     8  ;     John 
Brown  ballad,  9;    "Alice  of   Mon- 
mouth,"  ii  ;  "Cavalry  Song,"  not 
an  independent    lyric,    12  ;    "  The 
Blameless    Prince,"     13;      "Haw 
thorne  and  other  Poems,"  15  ;  care 
ful  workmanship,  ib. ;  equipment  as 
a  critic,  17;   limitations,   18;   "'Li 
brary  of  American  Literature,"  ib. 
"  Nature  and  Elements  of  Poetry,' 
19;    arrested  development    of,  25 
artist  in  verse,  not  in   prose,  ib. 
place  in   American   literature,   26 
Aldrich's     friendship     with,     108 
Stoddard' s,  277. 

Steele,  Str  Richard,  humor  of,  92. 

Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  his  novels, 
100. 

STOCKTON,  FRANCIS  RICHARD,  288; 


birth,  289  education,  ib. ;  journa 
lism,  ib. ;  assistant  editor  of  "  St. 
Nicholas,"  290  ;  "  Rudder  Grange," 
ib. ;  writer  of  short  stories,  292  ; 
"  Lady  and  Tiger,"  112,  291  ;  rank 
among  American  story  writers,  ib.  ; 
method,  vindicated  by  success,  292, 
293;  style,  112,  294  ;  originality,  ib. ; 
novels  failures,  295  ;  humor,  ib. ; 
local  color  and  dialect,  ib. ;  novel 
ettes,  297 ;  favorite  with  children, 
298 ;  no  signs  of  exhaustion,  299. 

Stoddard,  Elizabeth  Barstow,  279 ; 
marriage,  ib. ;  literary  work,  ib. 

STODDARD,  RICHARD  HENRY,  275  ; 
birth  and  early  years,  276;  educa 
tion,  ib. ;  slight  encouragement.  277; 
friendship  with  Aldrich,  108  ;  with 
Taylor,  278  ;  "  Footprints,"  ib.  ; 
marriage,  279 ;  first  success  in  lit 
erature,  280 ;  second  volume  of 
verse,  ib.  ;  clerkship  in  Custom 
House,  ib. ;  hack  work,  ib. ;  prose, 
281  ;  verse,  282  ;  characteristics,  ib. ; 
prodigal  fancy,  283  ;  taste,  ib. ;  later 
poems,  284,  285  ;  popular  ignorance 
of  his  poetry,  286 ;  devotion  to  art, 
287. 

Story-telling,  Scott's  gift  of,  207  ; 
Mrs.  Whitney's,  207  ;  Hale's,  235. 

Stowe,  Mrs.  Harriett  Beecher,  124, 
125. 

Stuart,  Elizabeth,  188  ;  Moses,  ib. 

Style,  Stedman's  prose,  25  ;  Lowell's 
luxuriant,  26  ;  Parkman's,  35  ; 
Henry  James's,  85 ;  Macaulay's, 
ib. ;  Warner's,  96;  Aldrich's,  112; 
Charles  Reade's,  163 ;  Mrs.  Bur 
nett's,  ib.,  196;  Miss  Murfree's, 
185  ;  Miss  Phelps's,  195  ;  Mrs. 
Whitney's,  208  ;  Cable's,  267  ; 
Stockton's,  294  ;  Hale's  verisimili 
tude,  244.  See  Workmanship. 

Swedenborg,  the  elder  Howells  a 
follower  of,  44 ;  alleged  influence 
on  Miss  Phelps,  191 ;  influence  on 
Mrs.  Whitney,  210. 

Swift,  his  perilous  repute  as  a  wit,  94. 


INDEX. 


325 


Talleyrand,  78. 

Taylor,  Bayard,  praises  Henry  James, 
69;  his  "Story  of  Kennett,"  102; 
friendship  with  Aldrich,  100  ;  with 
Stoddard,  278  ;  work  on  the  Trib 
une,  ib. ;  death,  ib. 

Tennessee,  Mrs.  Burnett  ignores,  170; 
Miss  Murfree's  knowledge  of,  177, 
185. 

Tennyson,  "  Locksley  Hall,"  8  ; 
"Timbuctoo,"  ib. ;  debt  to  The 
ocritus,  15;  "In  Memoriam,"  22; 
"Idylls  of  the  King,"  132,  133; 
perversity,  225. 

Thackeray,  philosophy  of  life,  7;  in 
feriority  of  his  short  stories,  77 ; 
belongs  to  romantic  school,  100 ; 
typical  novelist,  148 ;  cynical  by 
play,  149;  his  complaint,  154;  pen 
etrates  George  Eliot's  disguise,  174; 
poem  on  death  of,  285. 

Theology,  and  Poetry,  23. 

Tilton,  Theodore,  251. 

Tolstoi,  admiration  of  Howells  for,  51 ; 
contrasted  with  Hale,  247. 

Tragedy,  in  Aldrich's  "  Mercedes,"  120. 

"  Tribune,"  New  York,  Stedman  and, 
6 ;  Howells  a  writer  for,  48  ; 
Bayard  Taylor's  work  for,  278. 

Trollope,  theory  of  the  seat  of  genius, 
146. 

Truth,  relation  to  beauty,  21. 

TWAIN,  MARK  (Samud  Langhorne 
Clemens),  "Prince  and  Pauper," 
94,  131;  popularity,  94;  home  in 
Hartford,  124  ;  a  Missouri  boy,  125  ; 
journeyman  printer,  126 ;  Missis 
sippi  pilot,  127;  tries  mining,  ib. ; 
journalism,  ib.  ;  in  California,  128  ; 
"Jumping  Frog,"  and  "Innocents 
Abroad,"  ib. ;  settles  in  Hartford, 
ib.  ;  other  books,  129;  a  hater  of 
shams,  130;  a  Philistine,  131  ;  two 
English  tales,  ib. ;  a  lover  of  liberty, 
133;  his  realism,  134;  study  of  the 
American  boy,  135  ;  short  stories,  ib.; 
English  appreciation  of  his  humor, 
I3&i  I37>  288 ;  business  sagacity,  139. 


Vallandigham,  303. 

Venice,  Howells  is  consul  at,  47 ;  his 
book  about,  48. 

Verisimilitude,  Hale's,  234,  238 ;  De 
foe's,  235  ;  Stockton's,  297. 

Versatility  of  American  authors,  230. 

Vile,  not  proper  subject  for  art,  53. 

Villain  in  fiction,  Howells's,  54 ; 
Harte's,  226. 

Virginia,  mother  of  statesmen,  87. 

Voluminousness,  see  Fecundity. 


Ward,  Herbert  D.,  197;  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Ward's  collaboration,  ib. 

Ward,  Artemus,  his  feeling  remark, 
58  ;  broad  humor,  288. 

WARNER,  CHARLES  DUDLEY,  birth 
and  breeding,  88 ;  "  Being  a  Boy," 
ib.;  college  career,  89;  becomes  a 
journalist,  89;  his  department  in 
"  Harper's  Magazine,"  90 ;  first  trip 
abroad,  and  "  Saunterings,"  ib. ; 
"  My  Summer  in  a  Garden,"  91 ; 
"Backlog  Studies,"  ib. ;  danger 
ous  reputation,  92 ;  not  a  mere 
joker,  93  ;  makes  the  public  take 
him  seriously,  94  ;  essentially  an 
essayist,  95  ;  his  study  of  Irving, 
96;  originality,  97;  independence, 
98;  "On  Horseback  through  the 
South,"  ib.;  his  novels,  99,  100 ; 
lack  technical  skill,  101;  his  ripest 
fruit  to  come,  102,  103 ;  home  in 

•  Hartford,  124  ;  humor,  232,  289. 

Waverley  novels,  value  of,  41. 

Wealth,  obstacles  of,  30. 

Webster,  Professor,  28. 

Whitney,  Seth  D.,  202. 

WHITNEY,  ADELINE  D.  T.,  brief 
biography  of,  202  ;  sister  of  George 
Francis  Train,  ib.;  marries  Seth  D. 
Whitney,  ib.;  poems, 203;  "Mother 
Goose,"  204;  later  poems,  205; 
finds  her  vocation,  206 ;  a  story 
teller,  207;  style,  208;  humor,  ib.; 
religious  tone,  209;  mysticism,  210; 
growing  power,  211. 


326 


INDEX. 


Wilde,  Oscar,  his  canon  of  art,  22, 
270. 

Winsor,  Justin,  237. 

Womanhood,  Howells's  representation 
of,  56,  and  treason  against,  58. 

Woman  question,  Miss  Phelps  on,  196, 
197. 

Workmanship,  Stedman's  conscien 
tious,  15;  Howells's,  51;  James's, 
59;  crude,  the  fault  of  American 


literature,  116;  Miss  Mur free' s,  176; 
Miss  Phelps's,  193;  Joaquin  Mil 
ler's  bad,  307.  See  Style. 


Yale,  Stedman's  career  at,  5. 


Zeruiah,  sons  of,  critics,  63. 
Zola,  read  in  a  corner,  82. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 
LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


" 


NOV  11 


i-t 


MAR  13 


APR  13  19R1 


29APR-59HJ 

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MAY  1  '  1962 


•  < 
IN  STACKS 


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LD  21A-50m-9/58 
(6889slO)476B 


019697 


4 1  cs 


